Nobody's Memories
by SolsticeGelan
Summary: The universe conspires against me, and a series of omnipotent beings that govern our universe seem to each try to outdo each other in a contest of who can make the most go wrong in my life. One of them says 'Screw you' and launches me into my death, and my new life - as a Nobody. Joy. [SI/Multicross, Originally posted on Spacebattles Forums.][Hiatus]
1. Chapter 1

**Nobody's Memories**  
 **Chapter 1 - R.O.B is a Dick, and Murphy is just doing his job**

Y'know, looking back at this, I would laugh at the circumstances that had lead me to this point.

I would also curse ROB while kicking him in the balls.

I would also curse Murphy, and by extension, Imhotep. Oh good, I still remember Spacebattles!

Now then, every SI's obligation to curse ROB put to the side, where does my 'situation' start? Oh,let's see… I'd say it all started with me walking down the street to return the copy of the second Kingdom Hearts game to a friend, phone in hand, about to read through the madness that had at one point come to represent the vast majority of my social life. As all Spacebattlers in my situation inevitably do, I had read a comment that made me laugh, and after one long, convoluted series of thoughts, I decided I would tempt murphy for no apparent reason on an average day.

"He's right; what could possibly go wrong?" I had said aloud, still laughing, and drawing the ire of a nearby man walking his dog. I had even thrown in particular inflections

Ok, he shot me an angry look.

….A concerned look with a bit of anger is still an angry look. Ok, I'm not the best at reading human emotions, alright? Especially considering my circumstances.

See, this is the part where things had gotten interesting. The particular comment I was laughing at isn't important; even I don't remember it; my own comment? I know what you're wondering. Well, the way I figure it, I might have just tripped over a rock and scraped my knee, which then somehow contracted the bubonic plague, all for tempting Murphy; but the comment I had read was one of Imhotep's, and the way I figure it, she intercepted my temptations, and personally passed them along to Murphy; and unfortunately for me, Murphy's Murphy had placed Murphy on a phone call with his good friend R.O.B. at the time.

Now, normally this would be the part where I, the unfortunate victim, tripped and contracted an ancient plague that I'm vulnerable to through a random mutation received last week after drinking slightly rotten milk. But Imhotep had been talking too loudly ,you see, and R.O.B had heard her through Murphy's shushing, and taken a personal interest in me, the random spacebattler who also happen to post on SV from time to time. They had then forgotten about their old conversation ,and through an elaborate flowchart and several powerpoints, had come up with the most deliciously heinous way to prove me wrong. It was a glorious flow,chart, too; spanned several worlds, 4 dimensional, written in an eldritch language we cannot hope to understand just to fuck with us… the powerpoints, near as I can figure, were just really good powerpoints. R.O.B and Murphy were just really good businessmen. They had created a truly epic, awe-inspiring plan for how to ruin my life for the rest of my pitiful, short existence that I would only have to be in awe of.

Now, near as I know, Imhotep's Imhotep had been watching, and told Murphy's Murphy everything was going perfectly fine, and that he didn't need to interfere. Unfortunately for me, Murphy's Murphy had also been on a phone at the time, talking to the R.O.B to end all R.O.B's, who proceeded to atomically disintegrate R.O.B and Murphy's plans, and proceed to kick over and stomp upon every tenuous force that dared to balance the universe's face. Well, how do I know this? The answer is simple.

As I walked down the street, I bumped into a man, dropping my phone and the game. We both bent down, profusely apologizing, me grabbing my phone and him grabbing the game…. When I looked him in the face. Perfectly normal, you see, the kind of person who you could call roguish as easily as you could plain. Then I looked him in the eyes, apologies dying, as I dropped my phone again.

"Mother fu-"

So… deep. So...blue. Ancient beyond measure, to a degree where any words I used to describe them would be meaningless. Even just remembering them, I… shudder. Meaning faded from them. I could scarcely register his amused grin, his laughter, or what he said to me. I couldn't imagine looking away, but managed to for a single moment, a frantic,a useless gesture to get two doses of confirmation as to my situation; I managed to look at his waist for a single second; nothing. No weapon. Our gazes met once again, and I lost into an eternity so deep even the Eldritch would

Well , they were locked until a Woman's hands grabbed me from behind, laughing wildly, and I heard her shout something as I snapped out of my revery and was tossed - an Overhead toss, mind you, not shoved - through the air, her excited call echoing after me.

 **"Turns out this counts as an ASH world!"**

The voice followed me, chiming and echoing throughout ...well,everything, even as I burst into flames and vanished from the world, bursting through who-knows-how-many dimensional barriers, multiverses, and franchises before finally slowing, sliding through one dimensional barrier with a texture like wet tissue paper, bending around my form as it slowed it, its consistency reminding me of gello mixed with I did not realize it, as I slowed and was dropped through the barrier and punching through it like my idle thumb through plastic wrap, that I was currently staring the lanes between down. Not that I could see, mind you, especially not considering both where I was and my blind panic.

Ah, my last true burst of panic… I shall remember it, and cherish it if I could. I'll have to settle for the alternative.

Now, this would be when I started to fall through the sky, somehow still alive even though I was burning up, probably visible as a shooting star to the people of that world, clothes already burned away, body slightly charred, pain overridden by sheer adrenaline and force of will…. Maybe a bit of disbelief, but you know.

So many emotions…. Y'know, that's something I feel -HA!- I'm going to be doing a lot more now. Emphasizing certain words…. Ah well, no use dwelling on something I can't have,

Of course, staring down my imminent death was a bit of an… what's the word? Epiphany works. I didn't give some random god a prayer, I didn't mourn for the loss of what I could've done for the world, I only feared for my life for a single pant-wetting moment…. No, I accepted it. There was nothing I could've said, nothing I could've done; I had, for a single moment, given in to every depressing thought of how worthless I was in the grand scheme of things.

Especially after looking at those eyes. I'm not even capable of it now, but they somehow still send shivers up my spine.

So, I was content, even for a single moment. Then my thoughts were interrupted by my face crashing through a rock, and mind-numbing pain overtook everything in a string of rampant cursing, even though my mouth was bloody. It was… well, interesting now, horrific then. Every bone broken, stuck between rock, soft dirt, and grass… more blood lost than I could probably fit in my fifteen year old body. I wonder now why I didn't immediately die, especially considering I landed head first. My best explanation thus far has been R.O.B fuckery.

It was about then, amidst my thrashing and screaming in agony, that I realized exactly here I was. The rock I had smashed my head into was a chimney; the many grassy hills homes bearing windows and doors. I could see paths made for smaller people, and the roar in the back of my mind was fading to reveal panicked voices.

With a laugh, I realized where I was there and then, when a small man with a head of curly brown hair and hairy bare feet ran out of his house, confused and scared. I hadn't been that loud, had I? I had thought.

Then I remembered the sonic boom.

So I kept on laughing, because I recognized where I was. I recognized the Shire, the burrow, the Hobbits… Hell, that was Bilbo, Bilbo's house, Bilbo's chimney….It looked just like the movie!

The disappointment that it hadn't looked like I had imagined faded fast, replaced by...joy. Contentment. I got to see the world made by Tolkien, a place that had inspired so many stories, brought me joy, even helped inspire me at times… a place so generic yet amazing, the entire Fantasy genre was permeated by it, whether or not you knew it.

What a wonderful place to die! Would I be buried in an unmarked tomb? Would they send my corpse to the nearest humans first chance they got, presumably once Gandalf came round? Is this before or after the Hobbit? Might Bilbo personally take my body elsewhere? No, he was far too tame for the plot to have started yet, judging by his blubbering. Oh, he was blubbering! Wonderful! What wonderful butterfly's I might cause! How long would they talk about the naked human who fell from the sky, only to crash into some innocent hobbits home? More than long enough for all the details to get warped and distorted, I'd imagine; they were hobbits, after all. Gossip ran deeper in their blood than procrastination did in me. What might the tale become a decade from now, a century? Would it die or thrive before then?

Oh, I did not know, but how wonderful a place to die! I had laughed again, there and then, slightly delirious and lost in my thoughts. So many emotions, so much care and excitement and a dozen other things bubbling through my mind… oh, nostalgia, how I 'wish' I could feel even you.

Those feelings all came crashing down soon after, before a crowd could even form, before the hobbits could even form; with a single noise. My last feeling of dread, but final and opposite of least feeling of fear.

 **Bworp?**

A shadow, welling up from thin air as though there were a crack in the worlds. There very might well have been, considering my method of entry. A crack in the World's barrier.

 **Bworp!**

Two glowing yellow eyes, shining from a cartoonishly large head atop a small body with long,twisted feelers popped out of the air,more slowly following after it apearing out of thin air like the were wriggling out of a crack, curiously circling me. My heart had stopped, by mind had slowed; The Heartless.

I had just burst through this world's barrier. The heartless had just appeared as though they had wormed their way through a crack in the sky.

A foregone conclusion, but beside the then much closer point

Heartless. Shadows. Weakest of all heartless, and so desperately far out of my league it wasn't even funny. I was lying here, bleeding to death, and I had just lead the heartless to a feast of pure-hearted souls via interdimensional solar flare. One heartless was a problem, one I might - might- stop by sacrificing myself to dissuade it from coming here. I had forgone reading the lore to power through the series first, but I still knew only a keyblade could permanently end them, but that enough deaths could dissuade them. A scarce, dreadful hope.

The still growing half-dozen heartless looking at me, still making noises that were far too cute to belong to World-ending shadow demon zombies?

Not a hope. Oh, the determination, so rich! I'll always remember it.

My final thoughts as I charged at them, shambling as I went, body in disrepair? As much as I would like to say 'Fuck you, R.O.B, it was closer to 'oh god oh god oh god why me."

Anyone who asks me about how I died from now on will hear the tale of my heroic charge, taking them all out before a Darkside showed up.

So then, there I was, the Shadow jumping back from my feeble punch, the others slowly circling me now. One leaped from behind me, making the wind rustle, giving me scarcely a moment to even register it had moved, when its claw pierced by chest, not one drop of blood on them.

I felt it tear out my heart, tear it out, oh so much pain and ever-mounting fear… but I did not want to die, fought and struggled, even managed to temporarily disperse one for but a moment, did not want to go silently into the night, -didn't want my goddamned last thoughts to be a goddamned shitty movie refer-

Nothing.

And then, I awoke here. Dressed in a cloak the same Silvery-white as the shade making up most of Castle Oblivion,made in the guise of the Robes of Organization Thirteen. Sitting upon a floating rock in the middle of the lanes between, a large chunk amongst rubble, sitting amongst endless stars, all as a vast infinite darkness that whispered, tempted me with promises of power, echoing againts every corner of my mind…

Or so it should have been. Instead, I felt nothing, nothing but a deep coldness deep within my chest. Not one whiff of panic, not one hint of anger, or regret, but certainly confusion. Not the emotional kind, the one you would receive when baffled; the kind one would get when attempting to figure out what way a Rubik's cube should twist or turn to get to the next combination. A cold, logical confusion. The negative emotions weren't all that I had taken note was absent. The beauty of what I stared at, all the colors, the auroras, the countless worlds… did nothing. Not one hint of excitement at what I wore, no squee of fanboyism in relation to what I wore. Only the most minor of notation of the quality of the robe, an admission to how fine the quality,a minor thought track dedicated to ramblings on its craftsmanship that I quickly silenced because they weren't getting me anywhere.

I found it quite clear what had happened to me, what with the soul-crushing vast void, cold and empty, aching and beating without rhythm as it called for something.

I was a Nobody.

I had been slain by the Heartless; it was quite clear-cut, honestly. Whenever the Heartless killed someone, their heart was taken, terrible things I was quite sure of occurring to it, darkness overwhelming it and converting it into a heartless. Normally, heart taken, the body would shrivel up, mind and soul lost; but when someone with a strong will, a strong desire to survive, a strong enough soul? Their bodies would keep on going, regardless of what anyone else said should have happened. Normal nobody's would still shrivel up, yet change and squirm as they took on new, warped shapes that bore no mind to normal geometries. They were thinking, intelligent creatures, always with some goal in mind, seeking to regain what was lost. Yet they could not remember what they once had.

Humanoid Nobodies, though? An entirely different story. They…. We remember our pasts, our history; we are emotionless and thinking, able to draw upon powers I had no real explanation as to why or how they manifested themselves. Well, according to my abysmal understanding of Nobody lore. It should have made the pain of lacking them greater - yet it didnt, couldnt, because we could not feel.

Didn't stop the fading splintering cold in my chest from growing greater. It's…. Hard to explain, really. I didn't have to, nor want to, do anything, because I couldn't. Although I wanted to get back a heart, it was… more an impulse, pure bodily instinct that was tempting me on. A need more than a want, although I had no true needs anymore. Unless motivated, I would not move until the day I faded away to nothing, my body returned to the darkness.

Provided Xemnas had not lied to the Organization - a possibility I wouldn't discount without readily bountiful evidence.

Dude was a bastardous prick, and I both couldn't feel emotion nor state I knew his full backstory.

All of that? It should have made me angry, saddened, depressed - yet it didn't, for it couldn't. I've been throwing those words around a lot, haven't I? Need, want, couldnt, wouldnt. It provides my muse with something interesting, gives me something to be curious about, stop myself from simply sitting there forever without one thought in my mind. There's a thought as well - I describe what I do as curiosity, when it cannot be curiosity. It lead to think of the other organization members, at the time; of how they could not feel nothing, of how they felt no remorse for their actions, how they could commit atrocities in the name of regaining that which would make them understand exactly what they had done. Ironic, wasnt it?

It should've triggered a fear, that I would become like them. I could try to tell myself that I wouldnt, that I refused to compromise my Morals, that I still had them. But did I? The Million dollar question. Would I care if I ended one life? Ten? Twenty? A Hundred? Would I flinch at the destruction of a world? I should've been in a panic ,and the realization that I wasn't one should have triggered fear or panic, and the fact that I couldnt should have caused something didn't, yet I still tried to calm and reason with myself, although I did not need to, for I felt nothing in the first place. This, is turn, triggered a curiosity, a wondering of what might be and so forth and so on for who knows how long.

I need to stabilize myself, I would say. Yet there was nothing to stabilize, no anger or frustration or fear or sickening feeling within my gut to tell me what was right or wrong, even if morally I knew it was something I would not do. Yet no objections would be raised.

On and on that thought process could go, would go. How deep down the rabbit hole of falsities and half-thought emotions would I sink? It would amuse me, if i could feel amusement.

There goes that thought process again - registering an emotion that isn't there. On and on it will go, but on and on I will not bore you with my ramblings. Now, you might have noticed I seem to be perfectly capable of display emotion. After all, how many times in this little journal that found my, floating across the void, have I written a joke, some sarcastic remark? Quite simple, really. I remembered me.

The Nobodies of Organization 13, when they did not sound oddly sexy or have less emotion or tone in their voice than some robots I could name, would often pretend to have emotions. A method to soothe the ache that our hearts had left behind; to pretend was to act, to act as to be. In life I was, of course, scathingly sarcastic and loved to joke around, when I was not busy procrastinating, writing, or simply avoiding most of my asshole peers. It… did nothing to soothe the ache, which I tried to shove to the back of my mind. But I could act, and it was as I wanted.

Oh,there's that word again! Want. Want, want want. What do I truly want? What do I truly need? Could I even help? A nobody could fight the heartless, certainly, but he could not kill them. Could not lock a person's heart, seal a world's heart and hide away the flame that would draw them to the world until it was snuffed out. Questions I might ask if I could bring myself to care.

Hm,seems I don't need to pretend to procrastinate.

No,the question I truly need to be asking myself isn't what I want, or what I Need; It was what I needed to make happen. Im sure you might know the situation; I, with nearly omnipotent meta knowledge, and now several powers placing me firmly above most foes I would face, would go around fixing everything. Perhaps, if I wanted evidence my morals were intact, would act upon this evidence.. If i didn't want to be disgusted with myself, for not figuring out what was wrong.

How many times am I going to bring up want? It's an enigma. I don't know what to do,and that's the ultimate decision-making factor here. The thing I needed… it was answers

That would decide everything.

So, here I am, scribbling away all the philosophies my little 15 year-old mind now free of hormonal imbalances can wrap its mind around, trying to solve an Existential crisis he truly isn't experiencing. I figured I would simply start writing in this journal, using the pen attached to it, and figure out what I should do. It's… an oddly blockish journal too, enough to give me a moment's pause. What world had it come from? The point for the time being, however, is what I'm doing here - writing out my own entries in this otherwise empty book. Create my own secret reports, as it was. Like either of the Ansem's Secret Reports, either the original or the other's ,though what you defined as which depended on perspective and how long you wanted to spend thinking out a pseudo paradox riddle.

...I had spent too much time on that, rather than caring for the accuracy or consistency of what I write in here. Mostly because, once again, I can't.

There were two problems here, problems I haven't managed to think of. I remember my name, certainly; and while given time to not be unsympathetically lazy in relation to coming up with a way to add in a X into my full, long, long name, it wouldnt exactly work. It would be painful enough to make even me wince. I could certainly use the name I take online, but… the multiverse exists. I didn't want to bring down the wrath of a planet busting angel, who almost certainly existed. Yet still, I needed a name, and I had nothing else suitable to the task. I would be forced to take it.

So then, need's and want's, impossible or otherwise and free of all emotion, aside, I need a name. Thusly, I have come up with one, one I shall use for all of tme.

I'm going to wince at the entirety of this report later,aren't I?

The second issue?

I may not be able to feel anything, but god damned was it boring out here. Apparently Boredom wasn't a true emotion, and I got stir crazy enough that I essentially leapt at this journal. My constant entertainment, regardless of its similarities to the real thing, needed to be sated.

I'll probably leave a more… shortened, version of this behind here,on this rock. I don't know why; a trail? Evidence I was here? A Fancy of my whim? It doesn't matter for the time.

 **Solstice Gelan,  
Journal Entry 0**

-0-0-0-

Placing the pen back into the metallic rings of the journal, I sigh, looking out at the darkness; countless stars, countless worlds, glowed back. The light should have been calling to me, yet it did not. I had a feeling I needed to focus on that type of thing less, and I probably would, but for the time… nothing would change.

A light, shining oh so brightly close by, began to flicker, before it vanished as if snuffed out like a firefly grasped in a mans palm. I felt nothing, even as I realized exactly what that had meant. There was only one reason a star would be snuffed out so close to where I had died and been reborn, one world which the Heartless had been recently been let into.

Pulling my legs up from the sides of the squared rock chunk, I stretched ; pointless, but human. I had admitted to myself I couldn't let myself become like some of Organization 13's members, and… everything helped.

Looking around, I simply had to decide where to start. Looking closely, I could sense… life, burning in vast and varying quantities within the worlds as well. The light, the darkness… I could sense it's the balance each world possessed as well, and where. Something to test later. I could even sense the Corridor's of Darkness, their winding pathways an open book that could not tempt me.

Tossed aside and forgotten by both Light and Dark indeed.

I also needed to figure out if weapons wielded by Organization members were a part of them, or made by some Nobody scientist. More than that, my power's. Going undefended into the worlds was… a bad idea.

Testing my strength, I jumped up, towards a piece of squared green rock barely large enough for me to stand on; I landed on it, upside down.

Fuck you too physics.

It afforded me a better vantage point, a better idea of where I should go. Right now? The world almost entirely swallowed by darkness, crying out even across vast distances, sounded like a good place to start.


	2. Chapter 2

**Nobody's Memory's** **  
Chapter 2 – The Lanes Between**

First manner of business now that I had finished writing in my journal, in a long, rambly way that probably meant I had lost track of all time; find out _where_ I was, and more importantly, _when_ I was. I had no real goal ,no real motivation. My humanity was something I was trying to grasp on drawstrings to retain, my personality – even in my thoughts – faintly emotional, and even then its faked. Nothing clicks, nothing registers; I had tried speaking, without putting conscious forefront into it, and my voice had come out tone-deaf, not one inflection placed into it beyond habit and accent.

Oh yes, I could hear my own accent now. I'm from southern jersey, and can hear every twang, pop, drawn out syllable, and vowel pronounced as another. _That_ wasn't annoying. Well, it wasn't, but it should be, and – no, bad Solstice, no more rambling while questing. I had to set up goals, and I had to figure out what to do so I wouldn't end up sitting around for an eternity. Looking back and forth, I decided to not open a corridor of darkness, mentally mapping out hopefully clear paths to hop across and get close enough to a world that I could access it. Not because of time constraints, or some unforeseen difficulties; no, to stave off my _goddamned boredom._

 _._

Really, of all the things that had to still afflict me, boredom? I seriously hoped this was an ailment shared with all other Human-Nobody's, otherwise I would kick whichever divine entity or force of nature was responsible for this in the nuts with all my…. Considerable? Force.

The conclusions to be made from these observations? The Organization XIII member's strengths didn't wildly fluctuate and instead could be chalked up to difficulty spikes and scaling within the game itself –possible, just to make things more difficult than they should be on my part- or there really was that much of a power difference that presumably couldn't be overcome save for through trickery and subterfuge between the Organization members, with Nobody's being created unequal to one another.

Hopping towards a large, flat altogether plat-like rock, I grabbed a pebble that had been floating nearby; aiming carefully for a far-off chunk of rock a normal human's eye couldn't have hoepd to see, I aimed, carefully lining it up between my fingers….

 _*Flick!*  
*Kr-krack-boom!*_

….that was surprisingly satisfying, actually. There were far too many gratuitous noises compacted into that one rock exploding into rubble all because I had thrown a pebble into it. Withdrawing the journal from the hidden, large pocket within the hem of my robe, I flipped it open, taking a moment to appreciate my pen. It was a nice, ballpoint pen, unadorned with any random company's advertisements, glass, or copyright claims of all things; and thus far it had shown itself magic. I could erase whatever I had written by running the cap along the text; though I had nothing to test whether it was the pen or book itself that was enchanted. My cloak outright couldn't be written on by it, my skin outright rejected the ballpoints tip, and there was nothing but

The point being, it was an excellent, excellent pen.

My pen.

Flipping the journal open to a section with a flap sticking out – such a useful journal ,too -, I Idly reread what I had written thus far. My goals? What I knew? Powers? Recorded here.

 _*scribble scribble scritch scratch*_

It had an absolutely amazing tip, too. Felt so natural.

Powerset thus Far

Exhibited strength beyond normal humans; able to jump several dozen to hundreds of feet with little to no effort. Effects proof of absurd strength, or of lack of Gravity?

Able to throw pebble far and hard enough to pulverize a far larger stone. Estimated distance; 1km?

All Nobody's displayed ridiculous amounts of durability to high-end RPG characters; assume I'm super-resistant to most things, but not all. We aren't immortal like Heartless; any weapon can put us down.

Physics; No fucks given. Center of Gravity appears to be whatever and however I define it. Natural, or due Lanes Between?

Pathways to the Darkness; I can feel them, the paths connecting all the worlds together with the darkness, that allows me near-instant travel to essentially anywhere we want. Test showed opening and closing of portals to be instinctual; locations need to have been visited or seen before? Unknown.

Eyesight is disturbingly good, able to pick out safe paths in great detail to get closer to worlds with ease despite taking several minutes to reach them

Vision remains constant in both extreme light and dark?

Able to sense life, and the Light and Darkness within peoples worlds.

Closer examination can reveal the balance, as well as intensity, of each respective force.

Knowledge

Aranel is my R.O.B?

Middle-Earth was consumed by the Darkness

Possible Keyhole locations; Saurons Tower in Mordor, The place Sauron had the ring severed, Lonely Mountain, all the vague places from the Similarion.

Was snuffed out shortly after awakening; keyhole in shire? Or was I unconscious for longer than I am aware of?

Goals

 **Entertain myself, goddamnit.**

Figure out when I am

Figure out where I am

Investigate the World shrouded in Darkness which yet shines.

Figure out why there's so much Rubble around these worlds. Actually, we might want to prioritize this one.

Monstto came through?

Regain heart?

Slamming the journal shut with a loud boom as it vanished back within the folds of my cloak, I nodded, a simple action meant once more to fill the time I spent here with. I had the distinct feeling that would be a recurring problem here, but regardless, entertainment and possible answers laid ahead, at the world you currently sought to enter was close. What an interesting world it was, too.

A single look at it hadn't revealed anything wrong at first; a misshapen world at second glance, perhaps, its star blotting out all signs of its deformities. A matter to investigate another time. But then? Then I had looked closer, in a way only I could. There was no tenuous balance being retained, nor a struggle by one side to overcome the next; Darkness overflowed throughout all the world, snuffing out and dowsing all the light I could find. Yet still the star shined on, bright as any other cared to. Was it a world overrun by heartless, unable to find the world's keyhole, its survivors putting up apparently commendable efforts to survive? There were few other explanations you could find at the moment, and none of them satisfied you. The fact that this worlds barrier, for reasons you couldn't currently understand failed to glimmer constantly, as though exposed to sunlight like others close enough for you to see had shown themselves to.

It was concerning, but not too much. Your current thought track went something along the lines of this; it was an anomaly, and you were a nearby SI. A R.O.B wants to be entertained, almost as much as you did. Odds were he had placed or altered this world specifically for you; and annoying a R.O.B was a bad idea. Even if that wast the case, you would look anyway; something about it seemed to scream and slap your sensibilities , as well as Kingdom Hearts lore, in the face.

I would laugh, if I had a sense of humor anymore; I acted like any sensibilities I still possessed could be offended.

If the threat of R.O.B-based 'encouragements' to visit this world wasn't enough to persuade me, what might be happening there was. Where heartless were created en-masse, so too would Nobodies be created; I wasn't entirely sure if they could be controlled, bartered, or persuaded with, but the chance to gain some loyal followers? So long as I found them, or could find a method of gaining their attention, Sign me up. Judging by how the world was consumed in darkness, yet no others did en-masse, I could assume this was before KHI, and therefore only had to worry about pureblood heartless, unless this was after the game, in which case... nothing changed from my previous situation, really. Regardless, I could try to figure out my exact limits there, in addition to figuring out if I could control low-level Heartless, and how some of the Organization's members had done so in the first place.

Judging the jump from here to the final stone deemed turdy enough to trust my weight upon, I leap, soaring for but a few seconds before landing solidly, graceful as a cat. I'm standing a scarce few feet from the world's barrier, now; it shines so brightly... yet it does not sing to me. I feel no loss. I do, however, feel like not taking a plunge out of the sky yet again, so I slowly back away, into the corridors of darkness which I had opened behind me, entering a long, echoing space made of darkness given sustenance and texture, all color muted an odd gray color. English texts cover the walls, as does a number of other languages I can... somehow understand and read. Huh.

 _*Scribble, Scribble*  
*Snap!*_

Interesting. For now, I turn, so that I may exit the corridors of darkness, exiting through the space I know to take me where I wish to go -

-and I cry out in true pain, rejected by the world itself. That made no sense. It.. I... thoughts racing, calm and collected, I know I would feel glad for my inability to feel emotion yet somehow register pain, which had caused to me cry out in surprise. Checking myself over, I find naught to be harmed; the sleeves of my cloak are singed, but nothing more. Everything is fine, even if I feel a bit ruffled up, and yet for no discernible reason the world had rejected me. The rejections origin was not visible from within the corridors; at least not via any methods of sight I had available to me.

There was no place for me to arrive, difficult to believe yet not impossible; I had yet to seen an entrance to the Corridors open without some kind of surface nearby.

Or something on the other side was rejecting me, shoving me aside. Now, here's the funny thing about me. I don't like rejection. Not one bit. Sure, sometimes it was understandable, or required in a relationship; sometimes rejection was unavoidable, and no one was better off. But random rejection? Well, normally it made me angry. Right now? Nothing but calm regards as I tried to figure out what had happened. My actions are rushed, now, as I think of a plan, acting upon it as steps formulate. Final conclusion?

I had no idea beyond what I had already said. It was in my best interest to simply mark this location down and visit it at later dates; which I did, exiting out of the corridors of darkness to observe notable landmarks in relation to this place, the few traits I had noted the star as having even from a distance - everything to help me find it again. I then turned, place my book back within my pockets fold, placed the silvery hood up over my face to realize... huh, what do you know, the hoods actually kind of just comfortably hover over your head, like a pillow thats making sure its not disturbing your hair will keeping your face shrouded in shadow. I always wondered how the guys in Organization XIII could have such crazy hair and constantly wear hoods. That wasn't enough to distract me for the moment.

Leaning against the edge of the floating rubble I had entered the corridor from, I tense, taking a form similar to one of a swimmer about to dive into a pool. I had reached my final conclusion, one that might help me regain a bit of humanity, with minimum risk and maximum reward. There was only one thing to say as well.

"At sufficient Velocities."

Tightly gripping the edges of the rubble, now crumbling under my grip, I tense... push... and release my grip, the platform getting quickly launched away from me while I sent myself flying forward at the barrier through a mixture of jumping and kicking the now eradicated platform. With a loud boom, I reach the barrier in under a second, my force attempting to pushing me through, as something reach out and shoves me away- deep into the void at speeds far faster than I could ever have hoped to accomplish,crashing through drifting stony debris, vision blurring as I continue to fall wildly...

My consciousness begins to slip as I realize I am, once more, falling out of the sky.


	3. Chapter 3

**Nobody's Memory's** **  
Chapter 3 – Though perhaps Murphy takes a bit too much pleasure in his work**

Falling through the sky once again, eh Solstice? As fun as it may be, myself, we really must stop meeting like this, Sky. Oh, and my vast, cavernous skull? Please note I'm aware of your illicit affairs with the ground. I know you've been seeing him behind my back! Now I have to steady my body to descend in a cone, straightening myself out and going ramrod, creating a sonic cone around me as I fall. I test my connection to the Corridors of Darkness, to the Lanes Between, and find that surprise surprise, as a Nobody, my connections weren't strong enough to pull me through in an instant without creating a portal.

I suppose I would be getting a durability test soon enough. The fact that I had twice fallen onto hard, hard land from great heights probably meant something, what with Sora and Riku crashing harmlessly into the water by the end of the second game from great heights. I would ponder my luck compared to theirs if the pool of world-crashing-from-great heights wasn't both so small, and that they had been falling onto an mostly water world. I would be more than safe, especially considering how far and hard I had been launched away from that world, taking only superficial damage. I didn't even have an headache, though if that was because I had been hit hard enough or because of some unforeseen lack of anger or annoyance, I couldn't tell.

Now, back to the entirely far, far too curious world I had just been rejected from. I had felt something living, something Primordial in nature, that had rejected me unthinkingly the moment I had tried to force myself into it; that clearly meant something was in there, or had stumbled upon a particularly powerful keyblade master's demented testing grounds. Rather unfortunately, I could only name one darkness-obsessed keyblade master. Of course, it might not even have been him because granted, that was the worst case scenario I could experience. There were... presence... had been _large._ Large to the degree where making up words failed to describe it, and I had just barely glimpsed its heart before it had literally _tossed me across and out of the galaxy._ The thing puzzling me, however, was that it had possessed a heart. A large, large heart that might as well have been that worlds keyhole ( _wait, might it have been? A sentient keyhole?)_ but a heart nontheless.

That immediately discounted two of the largest players in Kingdom Heart's lore, and that was concerning, because I definitely didn't like unknown threats. What could it have been? The Unversed, maybe, though I had known nothing about them beyond taking a quick look at Birth by Sleep before I picked it up from my friend's. I had also, by perusing the Wikipedia page, heard of another pseudo-enemy race; the Dream Eaters. I, quite unfortunately, knew nothing about them because according to my aforementioned friend, the game they came from was 'stupid and convoluted as fuck.', and been recommended to never play it. The most I knew about the Dream Eaters was that they were Cosmic is nature, or something; certainly fit the bill better than what looked like pseudo-heartless experiments gone wild.

I was also willing to admit I had overestimated the strength of the world's barrier, and steadying myself so that I would hopefully land on my feet as I finally reached the ground-  
 _*Krthunk!*_  
Ah,I had landed on my head again, dislodging my hood and literally eating dirt. Good to know this would be a recurring theme in my adventures to keep myself from being bored as fuck. Standing and dusting my cloak off, unnecessary in all honesty because there wants a hit of wear, tear, or ash upon them, I look around. Yet it felt human, and that was something I acknowledged as needing, even if I could bring myself to care to for a reason beyond occupying my thoughts. A bit of food for thought, how had I had so much time to think about everything despite falling from such great heights. Simple height? Accelerated thoughts? Ah well, who knew. Right now I needed to find out exactly where I was.

...I was inside of a smoking home, with a mutilated corpse clearly eaten to the bone by a wild animal, displaying many a bite and tear mark, the home itself possessing a giant gaping hole in its roof. Huh. When did this happen?

...Not just the murder. I had legitimately not been aware I had crashed through someones home, though it didn't look like he would be caring any time soon. Ah well, a whole new probably grimdark medieval world awaited me! What to do, what to do! Well, figure out what world I was in, or if I even recognized it for one...

Goals Quest Log!  
Main Quest: Whole New World

Figure out what world I have landed in, and if it is identifiable

Find and fuck with the protagonist.

Find and fuck with any characters I once liked.

Gain their trust while doing so by solving their problems or dropping backstory hints, for butterfly's.

Power testiiiiiing~!

Find chump enemies or dungeon (?) to test strength on and discover whatever unique abilities I might possess

Well, what else was I going to call it? That was pretty much exactly what I had been using this journal for so far. No point calling this section something it wasn't.

Side Quest; Graverobber

We've found a Corpse in the home we certainly didn't destroy, chewed to the bone and stripped of all its flesh. Find out what it was for further power testing

Find out if the man had any valuables or insurance on his house we can capitalize upon/ steal.

Not having any real sense of guilt or regret was fun.

Now then _*Snap!*_ How shall I go about this? There was a certain methodology that went with pillaging everything a man had owned in life. First, investigate. Cabinets, shelves above his bed in a room to the right and by the door, a bookshelf filled not with books but varying trinkets, burlap sacks probably filled with food, seeds, or some other bulk item, a few crates… surprisingly well-stocked for a guy I presumed to live in the middle of nowhere if I couldn't hear any screaming or curious whispers. Of course, everyone else might also be dead, slain by whatever it was that had gnawed this man to the bone, but y'know. Not to mention the fact that the dirty glass windows really didn't do the place, nor my currently lacking theories, any favors. Ignoring the fact the door was torn off its hinges to reveal a sunny day, the door itself laying in splinters just in front of the frame.

So then, priority targets, the chests. The trinkets could probably be pawned off if need be, so I could take them. The shelves had a few books, which I would use to find some kind of context to exactly where I was, or simply throw away. Food? Did I even _need_ food? I'd neither felt nor seen any signs of needing sustenance, had craved nothing, and suffered no physical drawbacks thus far, so... maybe not. I knew I _could_ eat, yes, considering article A; Sea Salt Ice Cream, but I wouldn't enjoy it. Objectively, I knew why Roxas, Axel, and Xion had done so - to feel more human. To act, even in their thoughts, like they had emotion, to help ignore the lack of feeling, like I was now, even in my mind.

I now knew from experience that it didn't lessen the feeling. It certainly helped distract me from it.

There was also the fact that the majority of the people I had just mentioned had hearts... maybe? Probably.

So then, what I had to do was boiled down to looting everything shiny, and skimming the pages of a few books. I should probably check out the corpse as well, see how long it had been here. Sniffing the air, there was only the mildest hint of rot and decay, hell, a candle was even burning over on a windowsill. So, that meant that the murder had both been recent if the house hadn't burnt down nor smell, and more importantly, that whatever had done it was still around. It also meant I had no weapon... beyond my amazingly strong fists. So probably not a problem.

Moving for the first time since landing, I set about my business, pillaging the poor mans home of everything I can find; Golden coins hidden in bags and bins emboldened with the symbol of a crown, a surprisingly large and existent uncut emerald located at the bottom of a barrel full of potatoes, candle holders, silverware, a stone that had tingled with energy atop a shelf - they all disappeared into a messily dyed bright-blue bag I had 'commandeered', formerly _also_ filled with potatoes, and herbs of some kind - a bright white flower with long petals, what might've been mistletoe, and leaves that reminded me of Parsley leaves my mother occasionally used as seasoning, were it not for vague differences that only a bored teenager who had chosen them as the topic of several hours recent sketching would care to notice. Overall? Mixed messages, especially once I had reached the books. One of them was a steamy vampire romance novel that name dropped absolutely nothing I could recognize, and another was a book of Herbs. It was either outdated or secondhand, too;yellowed pages and dogged edges, a chapped cover...It was certainly going into the newly christened lootbag, don't get me wrong, but still. Poorly kept books always had been something to grate on my nerves.

The fact that even one of my biggest triggers did nothing is what gave me pause. The one time I had ever come to blows with a kid had been when he had threatened one of my books in elementary school - I had literally sent him sprawling after he tried pouring water on it to get me off a swing. Expected, but yet I digress.

Finally checking out the last interesting thing in the dead man's bedroom - a chest under his bed which had contained yet more coins I gladly took and half-written love letters -, I rose up from my knees and kicked the chest back under the bed, silvery robes flowing at the movement. I had looted everything I could; time to go poking a pile of bones. I had been putting it off for long enough, what with my hour long noisy search of the already somewhat torn apart room; now it looked like a hurricane had come through.

Dropping the sack, I bent down over the bones and began to truly investigate them; leather and wool clothing, clearly worn and having seen better days, was torn to shreds save for the toughest, most sun-died sections, mostly pouches. Checking them revealed nothing but tools, amongst them a well-kept Knife, the likes of which I gladly claimed as my own. A few internal organs remained, mushy and eaten, in a much better condition than the rest of his bones, chewed until they looked as though they had the consistency of wet tissue paper or outright broken open and sucked dry of their marrow. I took note of his right hand's fingers, which he was clutching his left; shoving it aside revealed a bloody hunk of flesh remained. On his one particularly well-kept hand he wore a ring, completely plain and silver, yet clearly valuable to him.

Yoink.

It even looked like whatever had done this to him hadn't spared his head; his hair had been torn off in chunks, each eaten to the skin with tiny hints of meat remaining, covered in a greenish slime and slobber. An all around bleak, grim, and disturbing picture. I examined the ring, carefully and slowly turning it while clutching it between two fingers. In contrast to its rather plain sides and top, on its underside was an engraving that I actually couldn't read, despite being able to understand everything else I had found in the house and knowing it wasn't English. Interesting. Perhaps it had been enchanted? Sliding it onto my own finger, I decide its time to leave, taking one final look at the body.

I wondered if I would be able to introduce whatever had done this to the might of a Nobody.

Tying the bag up tightly, slinging it up and around my shoulder as I move to depart from the home, I sigh. Reaching the doors, I squinted in the sunlight, taking in a forested hillside, a dirt path stretching far and wide in front of the house; there were gardens on either side of the house as well. The sun rested high in the sky, looking as though it were ready to begin its descent. An otherwise nice well, I suppose it had been too much to ask for anything interesting to happen. Taking one more step forward, I reacted amazingly well to the fact that two dead, fleshy corpses suddenly leapt at me from the treeline, snarling in an angry hunger.

Or, I thought, Slapping one aside and to the ground, stomping on its head and crushing its skull, I jumped back from the others claw-like grip , as my Sister's favorite pair of pajamas's would say; 'Hangry.' Throwing the sack behind me, I took a fighting stance, fists ready; lets see, remembering my somewhat pathetic lessons from years ago, slide one foot back like this, stay on my toes, circle the enemy...

The undead corpse, apparently taking a note from The Lifestealers book, was crawling across the floor, head facing me as it also cautiously circled around me: odd, aside from the obvious Lifestealer parrallels, why did this thing look so familiar to me? Eyeing the first one, its body twitching while its head remained firmly broken in and partially buried, made no movements to help its comrade.

The second stopped moving, looking as though it were about to tense before outright skipping that step and leaping at me. It was... pathetically slow, really. It appeared Enhanced Perception was to be added to my power list then. That'd certainly explain how I had gotten bored so fast...

An untrained punch lashed out, tearing through the monsters chest, stopping it in its tracks. It roared in pain, struggling to free itself from my arm, tearing and biting at my arm as I continued to hold it out, not at all put off by the squirming, rotten smelling undead corpse hanging off my arm.

A right tenacious little bastard he was, though.

Observing my arm, I was able to satisfacotirally note that it couldnt even harm me, its scratches and bites failed to even fkrce my cloak to bend, andmy skin barely even noted the prescence of the long, sharp, blackened claws it possesed.

"I suppose you've just answered a lot of my questions, havent you?" I ask it, chuckling. " Care to help me answer one more?" I continue, grabbing its head and pulling it off my arm, holding it out and up. It dangled, feeting dragging across the ground, as I took a stance memory demanded baseball pitchers took.

"How far can I throw a roughly human shaped creature, one weighing about the same as a human male, who I this far have not struggled to hold?" I finish, winding up my arm, tossing it as hard and far diwn the path as I could. Up it went, rising and rising...

...and rising...

...huh.

The answer is "Tean Rocket is blasting off again!". I could even see the daimond shaped twinkle in the distance. Well, I suppose I had been underestimating my strength... in heaps and bounds. I shouldve been heading down the road, seeking out a village or something, but to be honest I was having a hard time processing exactly what had just happened.

Well, it looked like I could still sense peoples hearts... there were a few villages in each direction, the nearest a few hours walk. I tugged at the Corridors of Darkness, considering just teleporting over, but... where would be the fun in that?

Setting off along the path to the nearest village, I looked closer with my senses; I could sense peoples hearts, yes, but not within a very large distance. Not to a degree that mattered. Everything last a certain point blurred together, indistinct and warped, images of Light and Darkness.

And oh so mucb darkness there was, too... A soul-crushing ammount in most hearts I could sense, dulling life itself, the Light inside each heart not overwhelmed or defeated, simply... resigned. And if I looked closely enough? In certain places, there were cracks nonsensically placed that I could look through, and if hard enough I looked, I could sense hearts... hearts located very, very far away. Gateways to other worlds, tenuous connections between the realms? A closed loop, I should imagine, considering this world wasnt overrun by heartless.

Sighing, I realized these thoughts werent particularly result-weilding, and that they wouldnt be until I learned more.

Walking along, sun beating down upon me, I might've frowned if it meant something. It was slightly concerning, actually; I still had no idea what world I was on, and while i doubted anything here could truly threaten me unless it was overwhelmingly powerful or could pin me down for others to finish me off, it wouldn't be even noteworthy, not if those Lifestealer knock-off's had been any indication of what to expect here. I doubted they were very high end, and it wasnt as though I were stuck here. Regardless, what could go wrong?

...did I really just say that? Clouds pass over the sky, blotting out the light and covering me in shade for a moment; there was a rather large settlement over… that way, their hearts coated in darkness yet still striving on in light. Probably my best bet for now, regardless of Murphy-tempting. I mean, what was the worst he coul- wait, why was the cloud following me? Were those wingbea-

 **"RRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"**

"Mother fu-"

That would be when a large, green, scaled creature weighing several tons fell on top of me from the sky, a screaming bundle of fury and violence.


	4. Chapter 4

**Nobody's Memories** **  
Chapter 4 - A Rather One-Sided fight to the Death  
**

Shit shit shit thats a dragon thats a dragon _why is a dragon crushing me to death?!_

"EEEEEAAAAAAAAAAUCH!"

Currently on top of me was a roaring, shrieking, cock-a-doodling... green,enlarged _chicken's head?_ What? One of its clawed wings raised, falling down as a blur in an attempt to crush my head. Time seemed to slow once more,allowing me to shove it off of me, the creature recoiling in slow-motion, its wing thrown off course; it was thrown off enough that I could roll aside, missing its now wobbling wing as it hopped back. Recovering from my position sprawled out on the dirt road,I push myself up and onto my knees before jumping back, prepared to roll out of the way of another attack... only to find the chicken-headed dragon still in the air, leaping backwards. Its every action was had slowed, as though it were traveling through warm molasses. Not that I had ever _seen_ something travel through molasses, much less molasses itself, but an interesting observation - that time had yet to decelerate for me. It gave me plenty of time to observe the creature in detail - I hadn't exactly gotten much time to do so earlier, what with it roaring and spitting on my face while on top of me and all.

My earlier description wasn't the most inaccurate, but definitely needed a major revision; was it scaly? Yes, it was, but not completely covered. In fact, only its underside had scales, and they weren't even green; they were a dark, putrid yellow color, with both a shade and physical description of the kind one expects from a rooster's talons. Was it green? Oh, most certainly, it was. Covered in feathers so dark a green they were practically black, when they weren't covered in an odd pink-brown baggy flesh, originating from the crest and... Gizzard? Gullet? Whatever the fleshy blob underneath its beak was. Because oh yes, it had a Rooster's face - a browned, murderous rooster that looked like it could, would, and had eaten its smaller kin whole. This entire nasty package was all thrown together into the basic shape of a wyvern, wings of the same fleshy consistency as its gizzard, rippling in the wind, claws, talons, and all, a sweeping yet short plume currently splayed out towards me. All in all, it looked like something out of a Monster Hunter game, but I didn't recognize it... Perhaps it was a creature from the Frontier that had been added since the last time I had trawled through the wiki? No, that wasn't it...

It had just landed when I realized what world I was in. How could I not, after all? I had just _killed_ one of them less than twenty-four hours ago, before devolving into a trance-like state where I rushed through KHII's ending. It was a goddamned _cockatrice_.

I was in the Witcher.

I was in the Witcher!

...I was in the Witcher.

Fuck! I'm in the Witcher!

An expression of confusion flickers over the Cockatrices face, it's gaze still locked on where I had been laying, oh-so-slowly turning to find me as I think. So then, if i was in the Witcher, then that made those walking corpses earlier Ghouls, which meant my earlier assement of 'Meh, I can take em.' Could be rescinded. It certainly still applied to, say, half of the enemies - all the humans without magic, the lower tier monsters, some of the higher tier ones as well. At least up until I figured out what, exactly, i could do as a nobody if i had powers at all, when the 'Easy-to-kill' to 'Run run run!' enemy ratio started to pan out some more, and even then not so much, there was so, so many different things that could screw me if I was taken by surprise it was hardly funny. That wasnt even considering what I might be expected to do if i encountered the wild hunt in its whole, because they were _bullshit._

So much Old Magic...

I cut off my thought process for the moment, as time begins to return to normal; the Cockatrices eyes narrowing as they look at me. A quick pat down of my bag reveals no holes, and I drop it, not willing to loose any of my newly-aquired crowns. knew that The Witcher himself never seemed to have enough of them, though that may just have been because I was an impulse buyer more than anything. Shifting back into my cringe-worthy combat stance,I shift my foot back, readying myself. Because yes, there it was - the cockatrice had taken the same stance it had in the game when it would leap into the air, making a sweeping motion with its claws. It would leap right about ... _now.  
_  
However, rather than roll under the Cockatrice or use the Aard sign to shove it away from me like I might've in the game, I instead lashed out with my arms, leaving myself wide open to attack; My plan was to meet the Cockatrice head on. A thousand pounds of Chicken even MCdonalds would turn down crashed into me once more, my arms meeting its talon's, their edges failing to dig into my skin or gain purchase against my robes; I tightened my grips around the monster's talons, even as the force from its impact shoving us both back several meters, kicking up dust from the dirt road. The cockatrice begins to struggle, shoving againts me and trying in vain to tear me apart, roaring at me, spittle meeting my face once more. I wince,not because the massive amount of slobber was toxic or acidic; I had done so because it felt like I had decided to dunk my face into a lukewarm bucket of soapy water.

It still wasn't enough to make me loose my grip, but y'know. Something that gross was worth paying attention to.

Realizing it couldn't beat me in a straight up contest of strength, the Cockatrice tried to back away, shrieking a bit as it did so, succeeding in taking a few steps back - pulling me with it, and off the ground. Scoffing a bit, I solidified my position by slamming my feet down upon the ground, digging them in deep as it continued to pull and halting the Cockatrice in its tracks within a few moments. Its face twisted into one of fear as it shrieked more frantically, trying to pull away.

A Giant, Grotesque chicken wearing a face of Human fear. Rather grimly, I took time to note that it must have learned from a more... personal experience what a human's looked like, to have naturally assumed it with its life on the what I expected to see when I woke up this morning, put at least I could cross it off my bucket list... wait, could I? I technically died, so did I even have a Bucket List? I mean, I hadn't had one be-

"AAAAAUUURAAARCH!"

Oh right, giant doom-chicken fleeing for its life. Ignoring its struggling, I tugged it closer, tensing as i bend my knee's, lifting it over my head...

...and with a single motion, throw it over my back, directly into and through several trees. Turning to face it, I watch it slowly struggle to its feet, wings spread as it prepares to flee for its life.

"Oh no you don't!" I cry, sprinting after it. Now, in the game, Monsters had been all but immune to mundane weaponry, silver weapons and magic being the common weakness of them all. Sometimes Magic didn't even work, though if it was simply because of the relative weakness of a Witcher's signs compared to true magic or because they possessed a true, total immunity, I didn't know. I did know that it was, however, the reason a Witcher carried two swords - "Steel for Humans, Silver for Monsters.". I had already killed two ghouls, proving that my fist alone would be enough for the lesser beasts of this world. However, just the same as the talons of the Cockatrice hadn't pierced my skin, they hadn't broken against it, and the skull and skin of the ghouls had put up far more resistance than they should have given the distance I had thrown the second, meaning that they still displayed a not insignificant degree of resistance. I wanted to figure out exactly how far that resistance went, and thusly aimed to stop the Cockatrice from flying away non fatally.

I needed the Cockatrice to stay alive so I could kill it, after all.

Time seemed to slow once more, my body moving as it normally would as I dashed forward, intent on stopping it; with a single leap, I was in front of it, time accelerating once more as I watch its face twist into one of shock as my hand shoots out, aiming for its chest far too fast for it to react-  
 _*Splurch!*_  
And pain overtakes its surprise, my hand deep within its gooey chest and far past its ribcage as I seek its heart, navigating my way around its fairly alien biology.  
 _*bathump*_  
Found it.

Within the same second my empty hand entered its chest, it came out, the Cockatrice's heart clutched within, bloody veins still pumping blood in and out. I chose to solve this little problem with a sharp kick to the beast's face, the eye popping against my heel as it lets out one last shriek before spasming, laying on the grass and bleeding to death, a permanent expression of fear to rest upon its face until it was inevitably eaten by ghouls. Looking at my shoes heel - for that matter, at my shoe for the first time - I try and fail to wipe the green goop that was the eye of the Cockatrice off of its silver-white edges. Sighing as I rested my foot back against the ground, shrugging the crushed heart out of my hand, I only had one thing to say about this entire situation.

"Well, that answers that once more."


	5. Chapter 5

**Nobody's Memories** **  
Chapter 5 - It had to be unwashed, uneducated peasants in a Deathworld.**

"How... am I fucking tired?" I groan, finally spotting the village. I had no idea how, but mental fatigue had somehow set in on my walk to the nearest village. Not because of the walk, mind you - no, I never would have gotten tired by walking for a hour or two. It was the fact that I was, apparently, a goddamn _shining beacon_ drawing absolutely _every_ monster and magically inclined beast within a hundred miles to me. Now, how would I know this?

It definitely wasn't when the pair of Griffons began to circle above me, attacking not even ten minutes after the Cockatrice had. I could accept the fact that from up above, I was a particularly squishy looking human, wearing incredibly eye-catching robes who looked like a easy catch, especially for the meat I could provide. Of course, I had also needed to do some more testing, so I had been more than willing to accept their presence, leaving behind their corpses within a minute. I probably started to suspect it sometime near when a _fucking dozen Alghouls_ attacked me after I fell into a _fucking sinkhole they had covered with a net covered by dirt!_ My surprise and suspicion came not only from the fact that while yes, Alghouls were intelligent, the most I had ever seen in one place in the game had been _two_ of them, and they hadn't even had an AI distinguishable from a normal ghoul's! Yet I digress.

Perhaps - _perhaps_ \- I had been willing to accept that as simple bad, horrendous luck on my part. That my lack of truly in-depth lore was simply biting me in the ass, or that I had encountered a particularly menacing and dangerous pack that had been operating in this area for a while, their last victim before they moved on so as to not catch a Witcher's attention... or so I had reasoned as I slaughtered them all, 3 Alghouls making a run for it and surviving due to my 'mercy'. Mercy, of course, being defined as "They didn't jump into their trap turned my trap" , which I spent several minutes trying to climb out of before realizing it was probably well within my capabilities to jump out of the pit.

It was.

Now, I definitely began to think my suspicions had some merit after the first cat started following me. No, maybe it was after the second? Third? Fourth? I honestly dont know, but they were definitely confirmed once I had - count 'em!- 56 cats following me, both wild and domesticated. It was _definitely_ after the third bear, the fourth pack of Nekkers - a full nest each time, also known as 'I am literally drowning in them!', a fucking Forktail, 3 Wyverns attacking at once, a _duskwraith_ attacking me at _noon,_ the especially large group of _drowners_ , who were _miles_ away from any body of water, a Grave Hag, and finally - but not least - _five different fucking earth golems!_

The best conclusion I had reached so far?

I, a Nobody, was radiating magic at such a high fucking frequency that I was attracting monsters who normally couldn't even sense the stuff. I was basically a giant neon green sign screaming 'Come eat me or tear me up to use my bones for your unholy fucking rituals!". This theory was further supported by the... 57 now, cats following me. Within the world of the Witcher, Cats were one of two creatures that could sense and absorb ambient magical energies. They would sit out in sunny spots, soaking it up for hours on end. Cherished, if unfortunately rare, creatures, because of their ability to do so. The other creature?

Goddamned Dragons.

I was honestly surprised I hadn't already managed to snag the attention of one, even with how rare they were, because considering my luck with everything else, I should've already caught the attention of one. Not an understanding, or witty, or particularly old Dragon, no - I should've caught the attention of a sick, goddamned lunatic of a dragon by this point, who felt like murdering me. An actually challenging, difficult fight. But no, couldn't be bothered, because of the _fucking mental fatigue._ That was outright impossible for a Nobody, and yet basically wading through body's the entire way to the village had managed to do so to me. Right now, I just wanted to figure out exactly what area of the game I was in, and leave this world _as soon as goddamned possible._ My entertainment was not worth this.

So then, Imagine how glad I was when I finally reached the town, hood pulled up, bloody and goo-covered sack slung over my shoulders, to see the town that took me 6 hours longer than it should've to get to? More than glad enough to fool me into thinking I truly had some form of feeling, considering I broke into a mad dash for the town. Of course, that was a tremendous mistake, because the second several farmers caught sight of me they dropped their tools, broke into a mad sprint, and began to scream. Closer examination at the time revealed that my robes had been totally covered in monster goop and blood, not quite sticking, simply viscous and sticking against it. That... probably helped no ones opinion of me.

Now solstice, are you done narrating to yourself in the past tense? You are? Great! Now then, self reflections done, I slow down, hoping to calm the villagers-

"Wraith! Wraith!" A woman cries, slamming her windows shut, all the Townsfolk hiding, running out of the village, or baring themselves away in their homes. Ok, perhaps not the most... unexpected reaction I could've gotten from them. Now, why would they assume I was a Wrai-

Oh. Right. The hood that obscured my face in shadow and the blood-covered robes. Probably... probably wasn't a good public image. Breaking into their homes and 'interrogating' them was... an equally terrible thing to do if I ever planned on returning here or gaining a positive reputation as well, so...

"People of... err... this town! I come in peace! Please, allow me to speak with you face to face!" I shout, having walked into the rough center of the town. The wind began to blow, heavily howling in the late day's heat, shutter fluttering - and immediately slammed and held shut - , the noise ascending into a roar that whistled past my ears, producing a popping noise. Was... was that a tumbleweed blowing past me?

"I mean you no harm! I simply wish to speak, and to obtain information!"

Still nothing but massive, sickly green winds... well, there were the cats, but they had scattered throughout the town the moment I arrive, several sitting on barrels simply licking their paws.

"Look, I even come bearing gifts! I declare, swiftly removing the ring from my finger, and taking several gemstones from my bag. Placing them in a circle around me, I raise my arms out wide.

"So come, and accept them! I only seek knowledge!" I proclaim, raising my voice above the wind, spinning around and letting my robes billow even as the winds grew unnaturally fast and loud, almost as though it was whispering in raspy throes of madness, and greener and greener... with rotting grass... and that was a wraith behind me, wasn't it? Slowing my spin, I face the wraith that glows with a sickly green light, from which the wind was originating, whispers coming from a mouth which could not produce sound, simply staring me down. It had taken the form of a woman in a tattered dress, tongue extended, swollen and hanging from her jawless mouth, a skinless skull with hair a pale green color, her entire form wispy and immaterial, a marker that she did not currently exist within this realm in a way most could interact with her...

"Hm. Don't suppose you feel like leaving, Mrs. Plague Wraith?"

"AAAAAAAR RAAAAAAAAA!"

"Thought so." I sigh, taking a step closer to her. She raised her hands, preparing to attack; for though she was not affected by those in this realm, she was able to affect those within.

Normally, that is. I mean, I didn't break the trend of 'Normally', but I could definitely affect her. I had done enough testing with the Duskwraith to figure it out, earlier in the day. Case in point, she was about to lunge at me, something I might easily dodge... but chose not to. There she is, moving forward quickly, momentum just a tad bit too fast for her to stop...

"Gateway, Bitch." I said, opening up a dark portal in front of her that I closed the instant she vanished into it.

"Have fun on the moon!" I called up, looking towards where the moon would rise. Looking back and forth, I found... absolutely nothing. The wind was gone, yes,but the villagers had not returned.

"I have taken care of your wraith for you!" I call out, getting nothing in response.

"Fine, be that way..." I sigh under my breath. Arms raised once more, I raised my voice higher. "So be it! I understand your doubt, and your fear; yet I shall not be angered by your actions, for they are fair and understandable. I shall leave, and return soon to seek what knowledge you hold! I shall leave my gifts here, as symbols of peace and understanding! Farewell, townsfolk!" I finish, bowing and backing away into yet another gateway. Several cats followed me, steeping through

I reappear upon a hill overlooking the town,waiting a moment for the final cat to follow through before closing the gate behind me. Well then, if this was the reaction I was to expect from everyone I came across...

I supposed it was time for plan B, then.


	6. Chapter 6

**Nobody's Memories** **  
Chapter 6 - Step one; Kill Two, ?. Step Three; Profit.**

I hadn't been attacked since I left the village.

This was concerning.

Not that it wasn't a good thing, of course; but over the past two hours I had spent out in the wilderness, scouting out the surrounding area and testing several 'things' out, I had yet to be attacked by a single monster. Oh, it didn't mean that I hadn't encountered them, or that they hadn't been hostile - simply that they weren't coming at me in massive swarms dedicated purely to attempting to ambush and kill me. It was as worrying as it was refreshing - no Golems suddenly springing up to make a makeshift cage around me I had to break through, no Chort making a particularly rocky area suddenly trigger into an avalanche... just random wolf packs that learned to run from me after I killed a group of them without them even seeing me move, a drowner near a pond, and the occasional ghoul near the paths.

There were also, of course, plenty of torn-up landscapes covered in soldiers corpses or hanged 'deserters' and women near said ghouls, but little details like that wouldn't help much. The nearest I could figure - judging by the Temarian lilies and Novigrad suns - was that I was somewhere near White Orchard. Beyond that, though, no dice. No particular landmarks called out to me, no villages that I had come across existed in game, and I had found no one willing to help me, quite understandably. Even after I had cleaned my robes of monster gunk in a river, I didn't exactly make for much of an approachable figure.

Aside from the lack of Monsters I was mildly convinced were building up an army to try and utterly annihilate me, the grim-dark torture porn that was the continent's landscape at the moment, and the equally concerning lack of recognizable landmarks, what other concerning news had I found? Well, let me think... oh, maybe the _fracturing dimensional barriers?_ The holes in the world I had sensed had, naturally, drawn my curiosity once I hadn't been wading through piles of monsters. At first, I had simply been curious about what they were doing there and why I could sense distant hearts, as imbalanced yet not quite overcome by darkness as this world's people were. I, of course, had my suspicions at the time, considering that I was in the Witcher.

Then I watched the invisible cracks chip away at the edges and expand.

Within the context of Kingdom Hearts, a normally "Oh Shit!" situation irregardless of circumstance, yet perhaps not quite so large an "Oh shit!" and more an "Oh fuck!" situation considering the context. Sometime over a thousand years ago, this world had been your average medieval-age earth-like world; then, the Conjunction of Spheres happened. This world, via non-specified means, had meshed with another, the two worlds meeting in a violent manner; and in the aftermath of that, Magic had been let into this world, as had literally everything that didn't also exist in our world. Reading character profiles had revealed that the Wild Hunt was from the world magic originated from, and freely traveled to and from this one for shits and giggles; maybe? Probably.

My Meta-Knowledge supported this fact with memories accidentally watching a video of high-tier monsters appearing from nowhere attacking Geralt as relentlessly as they had me, with fireballs raining from the sky. Unfortunately, that wasn't the most reliable source for my assumptions.

A lack of information here _literally_ might kill me. What a pleasant thought.

So, aside from the Wild Hunt probably being the quite literal and accidental heralds of a Second Conjunction, _anything else_ I would like to add to make the situation on this world even worse?

Not particularly so, no. I mean, I still had a dozen dedicated cats following me and sleeping on sunny spots whenever I stopped moving, so that was one positive.

But even in my wandering, idle musing,c at-wrangling, and constant recording of everything I had encountered, I hadn't been doing nothing but despair at how shit this world was. No, as mentioned earlier, I had been recording everything I came across of note… and also sketching out a map of the area, using a large stone with a subtle hum, one which had labeled it as a Place of Power. I had stumbled upon it hidden within a large tree's trunk by sheer dumb luck, and decided to use it as the center of my map. In the hours since leaving the village, I had made a mostly complete map of the surrounding area, marking down locations of interest in a similar manner.

Now, as the sun began to set, everything within a large radius of the Place of Power explored… it was time for Plan B to start.

-0-0-0-

" 'Ta a bounty well-earned!" Toasted the four bandits, sitting together around a campfire, drinking deep from their booze. Having just successfully killed off a wandering trader and his escorts, one ripe with wares to sell after visiting some large city, they were feeling particularly brave, bold, and accomplished.

 _Especially_ when one considered that on at the bottom of his cart were high-quality weapons, leagues above the rusted long swords and axes they had been using before now, barely fit to be used against one of the Black One's armor, even as a joke.

"Cheers, mates! I'm turnin' in for the night." One of the bandits declared, drinking deep from his booze and carelessly tossing the bottle aside.

"Bah, you were always a lightweight when it came to holdin' yer drink, Steve!" Called out a guffawing bandit, who drank deep from his eight bottle that day... and promptly fell off the log he sat upon, as fast asleep as the log he had sat upon was dead.

" And Dale, you never know when to stop! Eh Barry?" One of few remaining awake bandits claimed, chortling all the while. The Bandit, standing and stretching, only responded with loud, bellowing guffaws.

"I'm turnin' in for the night as well, Larry." He yawned, hazing towards the moon located high in the night sky, already beginning to descend for the night. Larry simply nodded, not bothering to tease him ,already enthralled by his own drink.

Stumbling off towards one of several tents, Barry collapsed into his canvas, glad to sleep with a full stomach, warmed by the light of the campfire...

And then the fire went out.

"Light the fire , Larry!" He both mumbled and groaned, stirring in his sleep.

There was no chinking of a flint and steel, no clink of a glass. Not one movement.

"I said bloody relight the fire, Larry!" Barry angrily called out from his tent, making an effort to wake up and sit up as something small and furry ran itself across his face, glancing towards where the fire was.

At Larry's body, cut in half and resting in the flames, blood putting out the flames.

Barry made a move to scream, to alert Steven or Dale - no, that was only the upper half of Larry's body ,wasn't it? The other half was Dale's.

Barry moved to arm himself, to awaken Steven who still slept silently without making a single movement-

Where was Steven's head?

"Let's see if this one lasts any longer than the last few swords I tried out, eh?"

Barry tried to move, to scream, to defend himself even as his pants grew soggy and he felt the blood drain itself from his face...

Yet he could only turn, turn to face the specter dressed in white and silver, who's face he could not see. A truly terrible, ghastly sight, his darkened outline illuminated against the dying moonlight and fire- one to fear for the rest of his life. It stood barely a single step behind him, not a sound to be made even as the leaves rustled in the wind and his robes billowed, a blood-soaked sword held outstretched on his Right, an shattered and gore-covered axe in his Left. A few splatters of blood, lightly illuminated, could be seen in contrast to his robes, crimson drops perfectly rounded. Glowing Irises. reflected in the dying moonlight, revealed a dozen silent cats sitting and stalking around the spectre.

Barry trembled, prepared to barter for his life-

*Ching!*

-0-0-0-

Dropping the broken axe, I sighed. More test data was good and all, but every broken weapon was a smaller net worth of the goods I was bringing in by slaughtering bandits. Certainly, I had plenty of weapons of varying quality from 'shit' to 'decent', stored away in various bags and boxes now alongside various other goodies I had 'liberated' from various bandit camps, with only the sword I held now of potentially high enough quality to survive more than a hit or two from me before being utterly annihilated; testing its now brittle edge, dampened and cracking, it looked like I would have to keep searching.

"And I remembered finding such high-quality items in random bandit's camps in my constant search for more crowns..." I murmur, looking back at every other bag, box, and cart the Bandits had owned, tossing anything of worth into a small pile where there had been a large enough space. Content that everything had been found, I opened up a Gateway beneath my loot, watching it vanish from this world to safely reappear at a secluded spot I had found earlier.

"Camp 38 cleared; 22 more to go..." I mutter, walking off.

"Definitely don't remember there being this many of them in the Game either..."


	7. Interlude 1

**Nobody's Memories**  
 **Interlude - Geralt of Rivia**  
"Still recognizable Griffons; young, fledgling almost. Feathers haven't even finished developing, still fluffy and soft. Probably just paired off, searching for a nest. Blunt tramma to the skull, beaks torn off... used to beat it to death? Second one is missing its heart, just like that Cockatrice. Claws are pretty torn up too, couldn't harm whatever they was attacking... died pretty fast, looks like the mutilations were mostly made after their death. Nice, clean cut, deep - oddly curved. Whoever did this did it with their hands..." Geralt murmured, shoving the young griffons body over. Its underbelly was torn up, a mess of torn out flesh and organs, its ribs removed. Not torn out, or shattered - simply missing. Using a small Igni flame to illuminate the Griffins guts, he could even see how the bones had been carefully removed from the spine.

"Organs were scooped out, not with any particular care to use them; they were piled up... over there. Ghouls got to it, was enough to keep them from picking that much off of the body's." Geralt finished, standing and frowning. This... only painted a further, more confusing image for him.

5 days ago, he had been riding out of White Orchard, the bounty for slaying the Royal Griffon - and more importantly, information on Yennefer's location - in hand, Geralt had ridden forward alone. Vesimer had departed days earlier, to return to Kaer Mohran for the winter, whining of his old bones, and thusly Geralt had quested onward. However, his plans had momentarily... changed when, in the middle of the night, a group of peasants from a dozen different nearby villages had managed to track him down... begging for his help, screaming of a Silver Wraith. They had offered money, of course - for as every peasant knew, no Witcher would lay a finger without being offered coin. Just as their mum's would sing it.

And Geralt had never seen quite so much of it offered up on any single creature before. Thousands of Crowns, taken from several dozen different scared, desperate villages. Even if he hadn't asked for more information, he would've accept anyway - his coffer never stopped rattling, so to say. He had, of course, asked for more information on the 'Silver Wraith', for such a thing didn't exist. A case of misinformation and a lack of education often made a Witcher's job... far more difficult.

So he had listened to frantic please and requests, of how this specter would walk from village to village, calling and asking to be heard, to be spoken to and learn of the land he walked. His face remained hooded, a endless darkness making up any semblance of human familiarity one might hope to find. His robes would vary from Bloody to Various, and it was always - _always_ \- a sign of his presence when Cats began to appear. Most importantly however, and what had Villagers so panicked, were his 'gifts'.

The first place he had appeared was a small village with a forgotten; he had spoken, given the same speech all the others had reported him as giving, and from his blue bag left several items behind. Scared, villagers had accepted it, and prepared to flee or hire a Witcher.

The survivors were barely able to speak, they were so traumatized. A dozen different Wraiths and Necrophages had laid siege to the town shortly after had had left, and if one traumatized young man was to be believed, a Dragon had burnt the town to the ground. News of this town had spread, and thereafter all of his 'gifts' were thrown far, far away or burned, and all the villages visited had therefore stood.

Investigating the town later on had certainly showed it to be burned to rubble, monsters still inhabiting it. Not aching for a fight at the time, Geralt had left to seek out what might easily could have been this 'Wraith''s source.

5 days ago, mere hours before his first appearance, a shooting star had been reported, a bright red comet that had come crashing to the earth. Some peasants had investigated it at the time, and found the corpse of a ghoul, a pile of bones that had been a hermit, and a ransacked house. This is what had caught Geralt's interest, guaranteed he had taken the contract. A mysterious monster who killed for what seemed like fun, appearing after a comet passed through the sky?

The signs of the Wild Hunt. It had certainly been long enough since they had last been seen, and when combined with his recent dreams of Ciri...

Geralt had simply trusted his heart.

Riding onward almost immediately, facts had only grown more muddled from there on out. The man had not been killed by this 'wraith', who matched no monster Geralt had ever seen or heard ofs description, but by ghouls - picked clean weeks ago. He had found tracks in the dirt, and followed them, hoping to pick up a trail to some kind of lair he hadn't found at the first village the Silver Wraith - far better to simply call it that, without sarcastic quotation - but instead, he had found the dead body of a Basilisk, torn apart by ghouls and killed via having its heart torn out.

Riding onward, he had found the griffons. Riding further, faster, eventually not even stopping to investigate the bodies... for their were so, so many of them, each more concerning than the last with every implication their dead body's held, and every question they raised. Everything here simply boggled Geralts mind.

"Or maybe I'm just finally going Senile, eh Roach? Just talking aloud to a horse, trying to puzzle things out? " Geralt muttered, scratching the ear of his trusted steed. Whatever the exact circumstancse of this confusing contract were, Geralt knew one thing.

He would find this Silver Wraith, and have some very choice questions to ask it... with both blade and tongue. 


	8. Chapter 7

**Nobody's Memories** **  
Chapter 7 - Taking Stock & Exposition**

My week in the world of the Witcher had certainly been an interesting one, if not productive. Oh yes, oh so productive. For starters, I not only actually knew where I was - one bandit camp had finally, _finally_ had a map that I had stolen and asked them as to our location on before slaughtering them. Of course, I had hit my head in anger after realizing that I could interrogate the bandits before slaughtering them a la batman style, also known as making them literally shit themselves in terror to get the info I wanted and then dropping them off a bridge. Into definitely Drowner infested waters. While they were tied up in sun-dried Buckthorn, for my personal amusement.

...I never said I had to interrogate them _kindly_ or _morally._

The total sum of my reaped knowledge hadn't been very large, or exceptionally well-detailed, but it had been large enough to matter. Some of it I had already known, but it had been nice to get a confirmation on - the northern kingdoms current state, the fact that the landmass where everything took place on was simply called 'The Continent'... I could bash their creativity, but humans weren't exactly the most creative bunch where I came from either. "Earth"... really. I mean, at least the people of The Continent had the excuse of being a medieval-aged society on a deathworld! Have we really not managed to come up with a better name? I had even goddamned gotten the _planets_ name, Llarguibas (No wonder it was never brought up in a book or game...) and even though it sounded like a man's death gargles it was probably better than just pointing to the ground and naming your planet _earth!_

...huh, looking back, I think that it might actually have been that bandits death gargles that he gave me instead of an answer. He... kind of had a razor in his throat, didn't he? Ah well, I digress.

Besides the hastily scribbled information on the general state of the world, which had indeed confirmed that whenever I was in-setting it was during the third Witcher game, I had learned something valuable. I mean, the piles of corpses, battlefields, and hung people who were probably killed because they held valuable property had told me such, but more confirmation was nice. No, bad solstice, stop getting off track! I finally learned my location. It was...

... just a bit south of the area the game had tenuously defined as 'White Orchard', and definitely off the games map. Better than expected, and not the worst thing to happen. I had pinned up a large map taken from particularly well-established bandits close to a well-traveled route on a table in the center of my loot chamber, and using pretty much everything I could, had marked down locations of interest in the surrounding area. Blue marked bandit camps, white marked _looted_ camps, those two pebbles were places of power, wood splinters marked guarded treasures, so forth and so on to mark everything I could remember there being on the game's map, a few markers of my own design added in. A well-rounded conquest, but now I was using it to plot out the course of my adventures.

Oh yes, my Lootcave. I had a Lootcave now and I loved it.

It had always been my lootcave, of course. But at first it simply been a literal cave in a semi-hidden location in a high-up, hard-to-reach place I had decided to dump all the crap I 'reprimanded' from bandits to, rolling up their tents and shoving literally everything they owned into a pile or two and having it appear here, clattering down from the rough ceiling and clattering to the floor in a disorganized mess.

That had been night one.

Sometime afterwards, perhaps after going back to the mostly fine and uneaten corpses of the absolute sea of monsters I had killed a few days prior and sending everything of value from them – heads, eyes, brains, feathers, scales, skin, etc… - onto the pile that I realized what a mess the room was, and how little space I had. My solution to the problem on day two?

FALCON PUNCH!

More accurately, _punch everything_ until the walls had been smoothed, the ceiling raised and domed, and I had made row after row of shelves within the largest section of the cavern. I had precariously organized everything for the next several hours, separating furniture and several tables aside, making everything as space-sensitive as possible. I had a section for everything from the most precious of gemstones to sacks of crowns. The various tents had found their home rolled up on the lowest shelves.

In essence, what I had done to create the area I was storing everything I owned in was bang the walls until they had reached a certain degree of smoothness and depth. Like what someone did to get rid of a dent in a car's bumper. Maybe. I… I wasn't very well versed in car maintenance. I knew there were problems, like durability and consistency and such, but I hadn't seemed to encounter any problems….

The shelves themselves had been the product of my literally punching through several feet and stone and dragging the arm across the wall, repeating the process as many times as necessary.

Work done once more, I had set out for the day, stealing away more and more monster parts, visiting a few villages before setting out at night to once more blindly rob bandits.

Over the next three days of constant looting and failed village-visiting, each with an increasing worry over the fact that I hadn't been sought by anything and while waiting to return to each village after my first visit, I had renovated. Smoothed out the rest of the cavern, added stairs, a few carpets to brighten the place up, stolen coal braziers from an abandoned castle to literally brighten the place up, and generally speaking? I made the place look like an actually decent place to live. I had caved in the single entrance before making a smaller exit for the cats who constantly followed me around, appreciating the entire place, just yesterday.

Because here and now, looking at the place again? It was a work of art. Mostly. Look, point is I was surprised to have even made it.

A constantly turning and sloping downwards chamber at first, the loot chamber – the first room one came across – had alcoves full of boxes, bins and items of interests, more stuff piled high yet not quite restricting access to shelves. Tables were pushed together and placed at odd places, the largest one at the center containing my map I was currently looking over, the others containing varying letters and items I had tried examining myself. Several contained weapons I had layed out to get a better view of in the torchlight, the torches themselves hung between shelves.

A small, open-air stairway descended into several varying chambers, each one lowering, yet no less important. One was claimed by cats, and I had done my best to accommodate them, trying to make it a mini cat-paradise. One was simply full of chairs for relaxation; another had bookshelves claimed from abandoned homes, full of varying books. I hadn't read most of them, but the few books I had claimed for myself in my travels were either fictional, or of magical content. The few not fitting that discussion had shared titles with objects from the games, and thusly I had taken them for a comparison.

All decked out with curtains hung precariously with repurposed chains from armor to the ceiling, several carpets, and a painting of a crying clown from a weird, weird young boy's bedroom in the abandoned manor I had raided.

….No really, that kid gave even me pause because of the crap I found in his room. He was into things so questionable I both hadn't even heard of them before and I was vaguely certain he was the reason monsters had ransacked the place to begin with. Just…. So much white goo. So many summoning circles.

Shaking my head to remove myself from so disturbing a thought track, I got back to the map. My current plans… were a bit limited, yes, but not the worst. Continue recording everything I had taken in my book, record everything of interest in it as well, keep on trying to establish a friendly image with the villagers, try to get to a city to commission a weapon that wouldn't break just because of a mixture of strength applied and weapon misuse, perhaps even find a tutor – those were my plans. Maybe try to give the Bloody Baron some life tips, get him and his life back on the right track. He was an actually good leader when he wasn't a shit father or drunk off his ass, and did care for his family. When he was… y'know, beating them because he was drunk off his ass. I could try to find the Heart of this World… I couldn't do anything to it, but still.

That, and kill the Three Crones of the Woods.

Seriously, I needed to do that. Like, do that now. Mostly because they probably knew I existed by now and could easily be responsible for the fact monsters hadn't attacked me in a while, and wanted to kill me either because they knew what I was, or because they thought I was interesting. Mostly, though?

Fuck the Crones. Seriously.


	9. Chapter 8

**Nobody's Memories** **  
Chapter 8 - How to entertain yourself while waiting [For Idiots!], Vol.1**

Well, I was done plotting and renovating. There were no more blue markers on my world map. The cats were bored, having left giant gauges in the caves wall and their scratching posts I had bandied together. They had also been housebroken, meaning I had used reverse psychology to ensure they left the cave whenever they had 'business' to attend to by trying to get them to do so in the first place. I had taken stock of each and every item I had looted, taken from every ancient crypt I could find, and gotten as close to a city as possible before returning to the Lootcave based on the premises of it being a terrible, terrible idea to try and go into the city at the moment, alone and without a believable story. I also recalled several cities being strictly monitored at the time of the third game in terms of who could and could not enter, meaning I wasn't likely to get in without a fight.

To summarize. My plans were currently placed on hold by necessity and the fact I would prefer not to build up a negative reputation. I had nothing to do but casually sit in a chair, petting a black and white tabby cat that just _loved_ to be scratched and reading through _The Conjunction of the Spheres_ by the candlelight _._ Plenty of interesting cosmic mumbo-jumbo operating off of medieval-aged astrological nonsense and ramblings that I picked apart with 21st century science, but beyond that…

A book talking about an awesome, world-shattering apocalyptic event? Surprisingly boring, especially when I couldn't actually get relevant information from it. Sure, there were plenty of historical nuggets and lore-lite tidbits in here, but they were few and far between. I would certainly read through it later, but I _had_ to have better books than this.

…A quick spinecheck told me no, I didn't, not unless I was willing to judge these books by their covers. My current best bets were a small novella that also existed in the game about a dying older woman spilling her secrets of her time spent with an High Vampire, which was hopefully not a twilight expy, and a collection of the great Bard and Poet Dandelion's works from a decade ago.

….Twilight, Dandelion's poetry. Twilight, Dandelion's poetry. Twiligt, Dande- Fuck it, Twlight ripoff. At least that added a Bestiary entry in the game, I might get more out of it than I would flowery medieval-aged poetry spoken in limerick. Pulling the thin, purple book – clearly well kept, despite its yellowed pages – from the shelve, I begin to flip through it on my way back to the seat. A quick shove to shoo a different cat than I had previously been petting off the seat, and then to keep its claws away from this really nice chair I had found in the man whose home I had crashed into, and I had settled down. The book was thin, so perhaps the least of two evils would be over quickly as well.

The Intro was the same text provided to you in-game should you choose to 'read' the item, followed shortly by a table of contents. It was somewhat worrying that they seemed to share my sense of humor in the table of contents, but ah well. Fiction or Non-Fiction, this book would alleviate my boredom one way or the other.

Reading through, to my great, complete, and utter surprise… the book was good. Just…. Really, really fucking good. It wasn't some horrendous medieval Twilight equivalent or trashy romance novel – it was a goddamned amazing story of maturity, aging, and –well, by nature – love. Maturity and issues of the heart, and writing that would fit right in at home in the 21st century and have lead me to praise the book then, even if it wasn't as unique a book there as it was here. It wasn't all boo-hoo death and sobstory, either; it had the wittiest, most charming humor I had read in a while. It… what the hell was a book this good doing here, amongst medieval aged ideals in a deathworld?

The characters had flaws, ideals, hopes and seemed human – they were even subject to the same logic Game of Thrones used when it came to character death. Rapidly turning my gaze to the top of the paper, I had time to realize…. I…. I was only a hundred pages in?! The print was tiny, sure, but seriously? The book was one of the thinnest I had ever seen!

….ok, this was a decent way to kill time. I… I cant stop myself from reading this. Even with the cheesy romance scene I'm on, the writing shines through. By this point in the book, I was fairly certain it was responsible for raising literacy rates. Can't...look...away... and I'm a Nobody...

Thunder cracks, and I feel the back of my spine rise, shivering in response to the cold rain. Perhaps he wouldn't arrive? I had thought him better than that, learned him to be better than that; he would not lie. This would not be a trap, I knew; turning to face the glassless window frame, I take a few steps forward, wincing at the loud crunch of broken glass and plates. If he had not yet arrived, what might be keeping him? The list of things that could keep him from attending a meeting, no matter how illicit or private, could be counted on but one of my hands - and that was simply viewing him as a man, rather than account for all his wealth and influence.

Running a finger alongside the dusty windowsill of this old ,ratty house, I couldn't deny the place had charm. Nice, pleasant thoughts - that should do well to distract me from any negative thoughts concerning Earnest's well being. The clouds - they're beautiful tonight, just barely hiding the moon and allowing light to filter in, draping itself over me. A sigh. Yes, this is certainly working! Not simply sinking youself deeper into-

 _*Kr-Thrak!*_

 _"Morgan..." Jumping, I turn to meet Earnest's gaze as he stands in the doorway._

 _"Oh Earnest do you re-" I stopped midsentance, my efforts towards storming towards him ceasing. He is bloody, cuts and tears that run deep tearing apart his normally fine clothes, blending together with the deep red he normally wears._

"No, Earnest! No!" I bemoan, cats surrounding me, clearly using me as their own personal sitcom. I didn't mind. They were mine, and clearly enjoyed the show I was putting on for them.

 _*Kr-Thrak!*_

...It also appeared it was raining and thundering now, and it suddenly occurs to me that I had forgotten to build this place with the rain in mind.

I was already up, time having slowed as I gently placed the book aside; Ok, plans. Count the cats-

9..10...11, all here. Open a Gate...

...step out right next to a large number of rocks. Rain moving so, so slowly that I'm literally running through it, Eenie meenie mini mo... you look about the right size...

...And then I'm back, already having gone through the portal, closing it behind me to prevent a kitty escapade as I jam it into the cat's makeshift kittydoor I had made amongsts the rubble that had been the caves only entrance. No use having an entrance if you could teleport without needing line-of-sight. Lets see, rains seeping through the cracks int he rubble -

Tents! Use the tents as makeshift towels. Bottom shelves, right over there, shove them out and up, roll this one out... oh goodie, they aren't affected by my time alteration for more than a few seconds once I let go! Lets see, I put the repurposed chain mail to chains right over... here! Run right on back, shove them in and to the sides with enough force that things start to crack...

...and I have a colorful, yet distinctly terrible, patchwork of stretched out tents where a rock wall once was. Well... better than nothing. If I ever have a guest I can just claim its modern art. Time begins to accelerate, return to normal now that my moment of flurried activity has expired; I take note that I apparently both instinctively and subconsciously urged my perception to slow, doubling the effect, for its taking for longer than it has any other time, with twice the effect.

Hm.

Now I'm bored again. And I haven't experimented with my conveniently slowing perception of time yet... which I seem to constantly refer to as 'Slowing Time' while its occurring rather than as my perception of time having accelerated...

...oh, this was going to be _fun._

-0-0-0-

Observing the arrow five feet from my face, I tipped it upward. Time's flow returned to normal, and I observed it bounce around the rooms many flat surfaces harmless. My perception had returned to normal, and - ha! there it is!

"Again!"

Perception Acceleration Perception Acceleration Perception Acceleration-

Everything begins to slow once more as my perception is altered, from the bemused cats with twitching ears standing behind the crossbow they had just armed again to the arrow they had just launched, flying towards me at mildly eye-disrupting speeds..

\- Time Slow Time Slow- Ha!

Grabbing the arrow, I nodded as time returned to normal once more.

"I was right. Teaching Cats to use crossbows to help me experiment was fun!"

"Mrow!"

"You certainly don't disagree. And it only took me the better part of 6 hours!"


	10. Chapter 9

**Nobody's Memories** **  
Chapter 9 - Consideration**

Ok, I apparently had some form of personalized time dilation, proven and not fully tested. I could work with this.

...I had personal Time Dilation. Who was I kidding? This was amazing. It also went a long way to explain several things about my speed - I had tested my limits, and while my strength's output was amazingly high, it wasn't able to account for how fast I had been able to move whenever I had thought what was my mind had sped up. Not just that, but while my enhanced perception had kicked in, I had noticed little… discrepancies, in how I affected things. I hadn't given them much thought, but it did explain a large number of things. The way my feet would kick up dirt, how objects would retain their momentum once they left my hands and not for long after, why exactly I hit so hard that Monsters were apparently affected by my fists the same as a normal creature might be, yet everything else had particularly… 'messy'… consequences…

Point being, it certainly provided plenty of explanations for the many tiny things that had been adding up I previously simply attributed to my nature as a Nobody. But as I had already mentioned, it was so far untested.

For the most part.

Watching several cats realign a crossbow, its front draped over their backs to keep it steady as another cat brought the fourth bolt over in its mouth, I had no regrets. It had taken two hours of training, reverse psychology, and catnip, but eventually I had taught them how to use a crossbow as a team.

…Also, treats, such as seasoned and cooked chicken offerings every few tries until they got it right.

Could I have come up with an easier, quicker solution for how to test my Time Dilation? Yes.

Could I have done so in a way that didn't involve sharp yet mostly harmless projectiles flying at me repeatedly? The answer is also yes.

But the question I really have to ask here is _would it have been as entertaining?_ No, no it wouldn't. And in the end, wasn't that all that mattered?

Well, it wasn't, but to a probably immortal and eternally bored Nobody attempting to fill his every waking moment it was. Speaking of, I should probably see if I can sleep at all…

I might be sleeping a lot, on that note. Yet I digress, because I decided to test exactly how much fine control I had over my time dilation, and perhaps find some kind of dilation limit or form of time limit. So far… no upper limits. For example, when I had taken the time to describe the cats loading the crossbow, I easily could've described the exact processes through which they had done it, they way their fur currently looked and was moving, maybe even found each and every bug hiding in it. Not entirely because of the time dilation, which was…. Almost absurd by this point, a rock I had thrown into the air barely moving by now, and to such a degree I had to remind myself it was still there.

Relative to the slowly, slowly moving cats, to whom time had to have moved barely a few seconds, I had spent ten minutes running about testing the effects of my time dilation without them so much as reacting or batting an eye. Oh wait, one did now. Ah well, fun's fun.

Now, my grip on my personal time dilation required concentration. Like rummaging around through my skull and gripping a single section of it tightly, but not quite so tightly that it hurt, I had to make an effort to control things to any significant degree. My concentration _could_ probably be broken by a lucky hit, spell I was unaware of, or some other method of dealing with pesky speedsters and time manipulators, but irregardless, I had yet to discover the upper limit.

I planned on changing that now.

Tightening the squeezing sensation's strength, from just above that of a newborn child grasping my thumb to a toddler's, time slows more. Its formerly sluggish pace seems to lack all movement now, acquiring the quality's one expects from a cloud on a windless day. The tightness increases… more… and mor-

Why did everything ring with the sound of shattered glass, panicked meowing, and a gigantic ?

Oh, everything also looked as though I had stared at the sun for several hours. Funner! I certainly hoped this wouldn't happen _every time_ my time dilation was broken. I... gah, it was an hassle to even move! Every muscle ached and burned, refusing to work. I was stumbling about, standing still and yet my body tilting to and fro out in an attempt to make itself work properly. I rather imagined this is what being drunk while hungover would look like after being bashed on the back of your head.

Oh, this had _better_ not happen every time my time dilation was broken, because I was screwed if it was. This was the equivalent of a long, long stun in any of the games, the kind that a player would gladly take advantage of. Granted, it had been only a few seconds, but they were painful, painful seconds where all of my senses were warped and distorted a lo-

 _Thrak!_

Stumbling back, I almost cry out in surprise affected by the crossbow bolt that simply bounces off my head; there no pain,yet simple force combined with my lack of balance damn near made me fall over just from the impact. Splinters fly as I manage to shake the few noticeable effects off, control returning to my body, the noises fading, only a few splotches of darkness left in my ayes. Well, not all of the noise. Though not as loud, or distorted, there were still plenty of confused and panicking cats, meowing in concern. The crossbow had been dropped, and an untrained cat was playing around with a crossbow bolt in much the same

Or maybe they were just hungry again. They were cats, and therefore cared less about everything not relevant to their continual survival than I did as a Nobody. I was giving both options 50/50 odds.

Choosing to glare at them, tossing more chicken I had pre-prepared to the pack of adorable,tiny murder beasts humanity had thought themselves foolish enough to tame, it was high time to do with my now somewhat- clearly defined powers what all Spacebattlers did.

Try to abuse the fuck out of them. After all, even if only doing so only changed my chances of victory against an equal or greater for by a single percentile, it was worth it. For example - my time dilation was, if I were to judge by how it always accelerated my awareness at the first hint of danger, always active to some degree, however minor. The only exception I could think of would be when I had been 'stunned' earlier, my forceful attempts at pushing my abilities too far 'breaking' themselves. It had been... subtle, but noticeable. Like the difference between being drenched on a rainy day and the ozone-filled air right before a thunderstorm hits.

Perhaps not the most accurate description, but still.

The fact that time sped up- that being my only indication of trouble in the first place - could mean several things. It could be that my already amazingly powerful skill was in fact broken, predicting danger before it happened and slowing time in response. The Spider-Sense on drugs, basically. It could also just as easily work off of my subconscious, recognizing something odd or dangerous and slowing time before my conscious mind could register it. It might even casually slow time in unnoticeable degrees to check if something is a danger before doing so more liberally. The issue on top of that was that the time dilation wasn't just passive; and that therefore my mind therefore was coming to too many different conclusions with too few answers. Why was it not just passive, but controllable? Was it two separate skills that intertwined for some odd reason? The fact it was controllable - if a little focus breaking - by applying mental pressure in this odd, indescribable way didn't help either.

Kneeling down to reach a cat that had come over begging for more food before dropping down to sit cross legged, I knew I had to find out. More fan that, I had to figure out its exact limits. Was it one-way time dilation, only capable of acceleration? Would my ability to control it ever surpass its current limits? It... huh...there was so _much_ happening in my mind. How had it taken me so long to notice it? Was I just not capable of comprehending it? I had just reached out towards the part of my mind that controlled my time dilation, and then just stretched a bit... further... their were others things to grasp, big blobs of energy and odd mental strings just waiting to be pulled.

I admit I was vaguely aware to the many, many weird things currently going on in my head. I had stumbled into a few of them while trying to figure out how to access the Corridors of Darkness, not really taking note of them at the time. They were easy to forget, naturally slick against my memory, even as I tenuously touched them. Poke, poke poke. What a smart idea, Solstice, poke the strange powers in your mind. Would I have discovered them anyway, had I not been trying to extend the power of my time dilation? Simply reached up and grabbed one, hoping for the best or seeking a specific effect? Perhaps one of them was my weapon; I had to assume it was likely all Higher Nobody's had one. Unless, of course, they had been forged by an organization member... a possibility I couldn't discount...

Yet any of these strange mental connections and odd energies could be it. Like this one, for example - it seems different from the rest. Large and well defined, yes, but oh so empty. A hole just waiting to be filled, perhaps.A worthy test; then. What could go wrong? It was half mental muscle, half energy as well - marking it as far more different than the rest. I simply had to reach out ,grasp it and shake it awake, commanding it to _work_ without understanding why-

-and then the cat sitting in my lap vanished.

Hm.

Ok, not touching that power again. Point to you, Murphy. I had so few solutions, and so many questions. All I really wanted right now was-

Hm. There's that word again. _Want. Need._

"I've used it more than enough." I muse aloud, sighing a bit under my breath. "But... what do I want?"

An excellent question... and one I needed an answer to.

"Hehehe... there's that word again." I chuckle, the laugh a bit dead.

-0-0-0-

Power List

Personalized Time Dilation

Seem to be always active to some degree, however minor

Only exception being when powers are 'broken'.

No upper limit to time dilation, nor any time limit

Actual limit seems to be arbitrary, and mentally imposed.

Strong hits capable of 'breaking' time dilation, stunning me for a notable period of time

Based on my strong tendency to procrastinate anything and everything until the literal last second?

 _Test if time dilation is only capable of accelerating my perception._

Stop referring to it as both slowing and acceleration!

 **What do I want?**

 **?**


	11. Chapter 10

**Nobody's Memories** **  
Chapter 10 - Reconsideration**

"What do I want?"

It was an Interesting question. An important one too. Most of all... one I might not have an answer to. Because frankly put, I've been operating almost entirely off of instinct before now. Sure, I didn't want to be bored, but that was it. My one motivation, and not an important one or even one could really affect me, because frankly put the Boredom had no real consequences to simply ignoring it. I could've sat on the middle of that rock in the lane's until I simply faded away, as Nobody's were referenced to, or until I had simply been come across by someone.

So, I had another question to ask myself. Why had I moved? What _had_ provided me motivation to care about my boredom? I could've just bounced rocks against each other for an eternity to keep me entertained, not try to go worldhopping.

Do I even know the answer to that?

I... don't think I do. But... maybe... just maybe... the same reason that I've been acting as though I can feel. As though I matter to the world, despite being a Nobody. It... makes the emptiness inside hurt less. That coldness where my heart should be, where nothing beats. Unzipping the long cloak, placing my hand over my chest, I can't help but think... no matter how false a thought it is... that perhaps the coldness isn't just metaphorical, that even my skin feels cold to the touch.

Or perhaps I simply have no real sensation of touch, regardless of my Robe's silken touch.

It serves as another reminder of that coldness I've been ignoring, that I've been acting as I might've in life to ignore. Certainly, it helped, and even more so once I stopped acknowledging how fake everything was once every other 5 minutes. But now I was acknowledging it, and it served as a reminder of exactly how little I mattered. I could certainly tell that it was so, no matter what. When Nobody's had talked about not existing, about how they didn't really matter, how horrible the emptiness was - I hadn't understood it, not even when I had awoken. I had considered the emptiness before, but not in depth, tried to ignore it from the start. I had even thought about it when the Darkness had failed to whisper to me in the lanes between, when I could scarcely notice the light.

I could understand now. I could see it clear as day, even through the lenses of a half-dozen different odd ways of seeing the world.

But... no, it wasn't any of that which had made me move, was it? There was something more to it, even if that statement didn't make any sense when applied to a Nobody.

I remembered. Most Nobody's did, in some form or the other, but Higher Nobody's, the one's who retained their bodies completely? We remembered _everything,_ or so I had concluded. It's what had led me, almost immediately after waking up, to try and act like I might've if I could feel. The Memories of who I used to be. A scathingly sarcastic teenaged boy, who enjoyed joking around to the point every other sentence he said was a joke in some form or the other, a fan of fantasy and sci-fi, who had the tendency to procrastinate against literally anything that didn't motivate or interest him until the literal last minute. That was on top of being motivated to do weird or random crap simply because of boredom. Combined with a bundle of no longer relevant issues that I could no longer be affected by, and that I didn't particularly care to waste time going into.

That was the type of person I was trying to act like, and almost certainly some kind of caricature of right now. That person is the reason I had moved.

I remembered being him. I remembered the types of things he would do in this situation.

Was that it? The fact that I remembered having not just emotions but of all the little things, but memories of caring about them in the first place? That I was trying to copy those as well? Perhaps...

But no, that wasn't quite it, was it? I ... couldn't place my fingers on it. What exactly was it that had made me move? There was... something more, I could tell. Something that I could recall the Nobody's of Organization XIII Caring for, or perhaps it was the fact that I had wondered about this exact thing while playing through the second game.

Morality.

In a general sense, I never saw any of the Organizations members who didn't have hearts in some way or the other, maybe?, act as though they had them. Some of them, the one's who didn't care about their emotions or who had been terrible people as humans? Believable. But Axel? The others, who we admittedly knew nothing of in life? They didn't even try to think of them. This was understandable, yet confusing to me now, yet simply confusing when I had played the game. I knew some of those characters were probably 'good' people, yet they didn't act like it. They, like me, couldn't care for their morals, or if they broke them. In the very least they had never acted upon them, and admittedly I hadn't done so either beyond targeting bandits instead of anyone I came across.

Yet it was their failure to even think of their morals, in combination with their wish to end the emptiness inside of them by gaining hearts from Kingdom Hearts (no matter how much of a lie that was on Xemnas's part.), that used to confuse me. They wanted their humanity - but wouldn't gaining their humanity horrify them because of their actions? If I were to suddenly be able to truly take my morals into account, would I be utterly terrified of the fact I now had a triple digit kill count?

...how contradictory of me. Hmph, though perhaps that was one of the reasons why the Organization Member's in Chain of Memories had been plotting against Xemnas? It certainly wouldnt be the only reason considering how most of them acted.

Though perhaps I am simply overthinking things, making issues needlessly complicated and nonsensical even if I'm totally wrong.

Their morals might not have been remembered, or acted on. I certainly hadn't been trying to do so. But a part of me remembered what I might've done if I had suddenly gained powers. Sitting around, doing nothing? That would be almost despicable to the me who used to be.

Yet aside from that, I hadn't done anything. And these realizations? They really hadn't helped me answer my question, though it had certainly made me reconsider my actions thus far and look closer at the why's of them. So I was going to ask myself the big question once more, and not let myself get away with not answering it.

"What. Do. I. Want?"

Up until now, I had been running off instinct. In life, I hadn't wanted to be bored and had done random crap, and had been acting in much the same way. I wasn't even sure why I was in this world. Their were pragmatic reasons I could tell myself, like power testing, or its relative safety, or my familiarity with the franchise. Yet I wasn't even sure those were why I was here, or valid reasons. I had plans, yes, but were they good plans? Worthwhile plans? Did I want to try to regain my heart, a absolutely near impossible thing for a Nobody?

"What. Do. I. Want?!"

I wanted to try to be me, or at least as close to myself as I could be. To ignore this cold pain. Gaining a heart wasn't pragmatic, or attainable for now. Besides, what I though I knew of it meant I would simply regain it by being in the presence of others. Try to hold myself to my morals, even if I didn't care about them? Mostly useless, and I would do so by simply continuing to try to be me. Certainly, I would be doing that. I would also be trying to care for my boredom. Yet that was still, in some way or the other, not directly answering my question.

"What. Do. I. Want?!"

I sigh as I stand up. Unnecessary, but even if I stopped trying to be emotional, I'm not going to let that stop me now.

"I... want to help people. I want... to make myself _proud._ "

"..."

"No, that's not quite right either. I... I want to make _myself_ proud. Honor the 'man' I once was." I continue to murmur, standing and stretching. That... was correct. I couldn't think of anything closer to the truth, of anything better to do."Yes, that sounds right. Now then, how long have I been sitting and thinking..." Placing my arms behind my head, leaning back and using my elbows as a headrest, I stand up, opening a door to just outside the caverns. Stepping outside, there is but a single observation to make.

"...Why is it the middle of the night?!"

And that thought is that I need a clock. Hmph. Wonder where all the cats are?

Well, I suppose it was time to put my plans for the future into action... providing I make a few edits to them...


	12. Chapter 11

Index

SolsticeGelan _Verified Content Creator?_ **Nobody's Memories** **  
Chapter 11 - It isn't a dastardly plot!**  
"Sometimes, I make bad choices. No one could argue against that statement, and though I had always regretted making them (up until I completely forgot I made them), I could count on one hand the number of times I would ever want to change or fix my mistakes. Mostly because they were exceptionally large mistakes, but the point still stands. It was a part of human nature to make them, to be driven by your emotions. To let them drive your choices."

"As established, that wasn't exactly something I could do more than pretend to be capable of."

'As established, it was also very, _very_ stupid of me to keep bringing it up."

"But regardless, I feel fairly confident that my current plan isn't a bad one. Granted, I had made changes to it several times, mostly after my little 'revelation', but it would be more than enough to get me started. now, my plan is a simple one, yet one I could easily mess up. It had been easy enough to start on as well, and despite waiting an arbitrary amount of time to act upon my plan, the time had been needed."

"Now, what exactly is my plan?"

"Well, to explain that, I needed to go back in time a bit. When I had also found the map of the Continent in some Bandit's den, it had been in last camp I had deigned to clear for the night. I'm sure you remember it. Rather than decide to simply send it all through a gateway back to the Lootcave, I had decided to go through everything there and then shove it all into a pile. That same night that I found a quit excellent mahogany table, which isn't even remotely important, but I did lay the map out on it when I first found it. Relevant, I say!'

" So there I was, happy to finally have a map in some form of more than the local countryside, pulling out my journal and comparing all my notes of this and that to what was there so far when I realized exactly how close the old windmill the Bandits had been camped out in was to a city. Barely a day's walk, and juuuuuuust far enough away from the main road that they would be overlooked by guards but they themselves wouldn't have inconvenienced themselves in their attempts to get to the road in the first place. Well, a day's walk for me with my time dilation Bullshit, a day and a half on horseback. They even had this little note detailing their plan to try and make anyone who came to investigate think that there were several different gangs coming at different times to this one spot off near a crossroads instead of just them."

"Now, broaching away from these bandits unfortunate enough to be incapable of hiding themselves to me, and back to my plan! By that point I had obviously figured out exactly how terrifying I look. I make an effort to keep my impeccably unstainable robes dry of blood and gore now, but for the first few days, not really. Eventually, even after cleaning it, I had decided to figure out why everyone kept running from me. It took me exactly five seconds until I realized exactly how terrifying I looked to random villagers and farmers who spent their life never seeing a monster up until their untimely demise, and who were quoted as 'Not getting out of the sun at noon to avoid the heat, but the Noonwraiths.', tended to not be very reasonable when I attempted to tempt them out of their homes for good reason."

"They're raised on folklore, superstition, legend, and stories of some poor, random Sod getting violently torn apart and eaten alive by monsters. Why should they trust a man soaked in bloody or pristine robes screaming at the top of his lungs and followed by cats? So then, logical conclusion, I'm close to a city full of more educated, reasonable folk. For a Medieval Deathworld, that is. Last I checked scholars still thought that the Earth was the center of the universe. I was at my wit's end with the people of white orchard and even the surviving area, and just as they were at mine, I was at their far more terrified end. I figured that the folk living in city's would be far more reasonable than them, especially if I actually took my hood off. Of course, you might be wondering why I could take to simply walking around and taking my hood off when I walked into villages. See, that might help on my return trips to some of them, but with the reputation I presumably have now, it wouldn't help. Turns out I can be a bit thick-headed at times without my emotions to guide me."

"Hey now, stop hitting me in the face with your tail. It isn't funny. Yes, I get that you're getting impatient. I wouldn't need to do this if you would just tell me where the rest of you and all of my crossbows went. You can stop meowing, I'll shut up now!"

"..."

 _Munch, Munch, Munch..._

"...Satisfied? Good."

"Now, where was I - ah yes, my cloak. See, I'm not entirely comfortable showing my face for some reason. I'm more than willing to do so if it makes me seem far more approachable, and perpetrates me from any nasty rumors flying about of a silver-cloaked wraith, because thats what every village seems intent on calling me. Now, while I was close to Oxenfurt, and could get there fairly quick, I still wasn't exactly the most trustworthy of figures. A lone young man dressed in silver and completely unarmed showing up at the gates of a small city? Perhaps acceptable. In the middle of a war, in one of the most war-torn lands? Never."

"So, I had a plan. I would keep on moving towards Oxenford, yes, but I would do so at the same pace I had been exploring everything else at in a fairly wide radius. In fact, nothing would change on that front, and I would reach the city in a fair amount of time. That arbitrary little number I set myself was my time limit, just to motivate myself a bit. I do so need that... Anyway, this is where my plan started to come together."

 _Munch,Munch,Munch_

"It was easy enough to find several wagons, each mostly intact. I cannibalized their parts, started to store them in that fairly large room I sealed off, used bits and bobs to put them all together again and make a fairly nice wagon. You would be surprised how often and for how long carts are left on the side of the road after being attacked by monsters or looted by bandits. The horses, though... not so often. It took far more effort to find one, and tame it. He's also in the room with the cart, and as far as I can tell he was tamed and ran wild after some monster attack, because he was far too easy to tame. Responded to whistles and such as well. I had spent a fair while figuring those out. Those are two parts of step one complete."

"I'm assuming the noise of me loading useless junk I'm going to never have a use for onto the cart is what drew you back into the lair, hm? I still cant figure out how you guys unblocked your tunnel."

 _Munch, Munch, Burp!_

"...of course, I'm ashamed to have assumed anything else."

"Now, just yesterday is when I finally explored far enough to see the city itself. Once I pry myself away from you, or more accurately, once you let me stop petting you-"

 _Mrow!_

"- I'm going to finish loading everything onto the cart. Yet you see, my plan's first phase is not a three part plan."

 _Mrow?_

"No, it is a ... four? Five? However many parts you feel it should be defined as plan! Because my main goal here, in this world, is not just to get acquainted with my powers and generally speaking, being me. No,its also to try and gain some weapons of decent worth that wont break simply from a combination of my strength and lack of skill! Also, weapons training! So, how to go about this? Why, building up a reputation as a trader, of course! I will proceed to move on to Novigrad after establishing myself in Oxford, where I can use everything earned during my time in Oxford - where from in-game experience I can state no smiths of decent skill exist, though there are certainly opportunities enough for me to find a teacher to bestow upon me the art of the blade. It's what the city is renowned for - its academies and scholars. Perhaps, regardless of how long I spend in either of those cities, I can place a notice on a noticeboard to draw attention to myself. How exactly do those work? I'm assuming I can just slap a piece of paper on them and move on. Bah, me and my lack of medieval-aged common sense..."

"So then, once I move on from Oxenford - perhaps being lucky enough to meet the Bloody Baron's daughter - and finish up in Novigrad, what am I to do? Why, visit the Bloody Baron himself and slap some _bloody_ sense into the man! When he's not drunk, he's an actually good father and leader! Of course, thats something that happens depressingly low frequency, but regardless. Once I do that, what am I to do? Why, pay the dear old Ladies of the Woods - or as I call them, the Crones-of-DIE NOW! - a visit. The thought of them knowing of me, which they almost certainly must considering the monster's that attack me on day one which still haven't made a reappearance. My current thoughts on the matter are the Ladies are hoarding them, or they've naturally decided to make an army."

"But the most important thing to remember in all of this, my dear tabby cat? I may be monologging my plans to you. I may be sitting in a swivel chair I was surprised to find existed in this World. And I may have been petting you the entire time. Yet we must retain plausible deniability, so if anyone asks - _this is not a dastardly plot!"_

 _Mrowowow! Owowowowow!_


	13. Chapter 12

**Nobody's Memories  
Chapter 12 - "All as plan- Damnit!"**

So, upon closer examination, actually guiding a horse was hard when you had no prior experience. Sure, I had tried to ride the brown, dusty, not remotely noteworthy stallion of unknown breed earlier. I had even proved it to be a horse born and raised to pull carts, showing it mine and having it guide me more than I guided it in harnessing it the wagon once it had realized what my confused, fumbled attempts at getting it to do so were. Getting it into the corridors of Darkness? A bit of mental scaring the time I brought it into the caverns, and then some shaking once I had it take the carriage out and onto the road. Nothing too big. I could train it to ignore it, I'm sure. If it's mane suddenly turned silver and its eyes gold, however, I was killing it quick and painlessly. If it turned into an heartless, however, I was hoping that I could both figure out how to control it and that it was horse-shaped.

Or that maybe, just maybe, it produced a Horse Nobody instead of a vaguely rideable blob. Experiments for another day, I supposed. Foremost amongst them why the horde of cat's that tended to follow me didn't seem to be affected...

Later date, Solstice. Later date.

Back to my point, though. I had no experience, yes, but steering a horse? Harder than one might expect. Sure, I got the basics ,or so I hoped. Hold it straight, tug this way to make it go that way, and vice versa. Make this-

 _kR-cRACK!_

-Motion to make it go faster, yep... Tug back to make him rear down... there we are, slowed to a reasonable pace. Just above a canter. Times like this made me wish I had ever thought to ask a friend who had been far, far too into horses about them. She'd even owned one. But y'know, hindsight is 50/50. Now I could just kick back, stretch my feet out onto this little railboard that the driver's feet is usually meant to go between, and relax. First, though, I need to check that everything is in order. Let's see... hood is down? Yep. My hair is free, free to do absolutely nothing in the wind! The cat? Sitting amongst a pile of neatly organized junk I planned on selling. Now, let's see, what else do I need to help with the illusion... My Glasses? I'd seen glasses in the Witcher, weird and probably accurate to the time period things that proved my own pair were far too well-made for this world. They would need to go, and sure, my vision would take a massive dive-

Where are my glasses?

...

Did I... really take almost two weeks to realize I didn't have or need my glasses? I... I had even taken note of the fact I could see further than humanly possible! Multiple times! Was I- oh god trees.

Yanking the reins back in a panic, getting shoved and jostled out of my seat because of my poor choices in how to sit, I tried to stop the horse, who had casually been about to trot his way right off the road and the ledge 5 way from the turn we needed to take to arrive to the city, and to his own imminent death. All because I had been sitting in the driver's seat, blinking in shocked revelation.

...Now reassessing my Horses Intelligence...

...Now reassessing my intelligence yet again...

Ok, let's assess the situation. The horse is ...nope, apparently the horse is too fat for me to see. Let's take a moment to quickly lean to the side here and get a better view, let's see... one, two, almost three but not quite steps away from his and the cart's doom. Yay. Alright, now how stupid was the horse?

 _Clod_

...stupid enough to take another step forward. Well then, I clearly needed a new horse. Alright, let's see. How do I fix his problem? The horse couldn't turn around without sending the cart toppling off the ledge and into the tiny valley below, nor could it back up. I certainly could get out of my seat and pull the cart back, but beyond that, I saw no imminent solution. I could take my time with it too, provid-

 _Clop!_

Of course the horse takes another step forward. Does it have no goddamned self-preservation instincts? Why the hell had it run from the Caravan I had found it near in the first place? It's just staring off into the distance now, and I can physically see the ledge crumbling now, ready to break under the weight of the horse's hooves. Well then, I have come up with a name for my horse. From this moment on, Horse, I christen thee Dumb Fuck.

Enjoy your name, for it is well earned. Now to stop you from - seriously, is he taking another step forward? Not having that. Clenching the mental strings within my mind, I force myself to accelerate; and it is important for me to note that it all that my time dilation is. I certainly had the tendency to refer to everything else as slowing, as though that were what my power was doing; slowing everything around me. Yet as my own mind was quick to remind me whenever I used my power, that wasn't the case.

For example, when unfastening Dumb Fuck from the wagon, the many ropes and other various things I had no idea what to call that secured him tight were not being returned to a normal movespeed; they were being sped up to be equal to me. When picking up Dumb Fuck by grasping the middle of his chest and over my shoulder, he didn't suddenly stop being affected by some world-wide time-slowing affect; he was simply accelerated to exist at the same speed as me. Not only that, but his kicking was really, really annoying. And now that I've placed him down, removing my hands from him, he's almost instantly slowed down to exist at the same insanely slow comparative rate of thought.

Attention driven away from Dumb Fuck, I turn to the wagon. While it had been moving slowly 'downhill' and off the cliff a few moments earlier, its movement was now nearly nonexistent; I could probably sprint to Oxenfurt's gates and back and it wouldn't have fallen off yet. Regardless of that fact, I locked my hands onto the underside of the cart's behind, effortlessly pulling the cart back and swinging it around to properly face the road as though it were a shopping cart.

Walking back around to DF, whose name was now abbreviated for my personal dignity in the presence of others and not for the horses, I grab the harness, and once more win the struggle to get him hooked into the harness. Honestly, this entire escapade felt as thought it was taking months to finish, with entire too many overexaggerated noises for my tastes. More evidence of my personal time being slown down, or DF being a pain in the ass? Probably both. Honestly, just kidnapping a random wild horse and strapping him onto the wagon might make things go faster. I could just slit DF's throat and be done with it all, if it weren't for...

...for...

...no, I had no good reason not to do that. Why the hell hadn't I? When had I put this knife to DF's throat?

-0-0-0-

"Wow, that was easier than expected." I said, kicking DF's corpse into a trench. The Wild Horse had already proven to be a much easier companion. And I had, at most, lost something like a minute to my schedule. Everything was going .planned. Nope, nothing could go wrong here.

-0-0-0-

Horses are dicks

How do I know?

Horse One, dubbed Dumb Fuck, less intelligent than a Lemming.

Horse Two, dubbed Actual Lemming, ran off a cliff.

Horse Three, The Rock. Ran into the path of a falling rock.

Horse Four, Wolf Chow. Guess. Just Guess.

Horse Five, DoOA. He died of Old Age without warning.

Horses 6 through 19, randomly attacked me.

Horses 20 - ?, I don't even know anymore.

Final Horse, cooperating and beaten slightly bloody.

Conclusion, Horses hate Nobodies. Also I caused the local extinction of Wild Horses.

Second Conclusion, I've recently gained excellent targets for practicing being sad and/or angry at. Coming along nicely.

Third Conclusion, everything is definitely still going as planned. By some definition of planned.

Fourth Conclusion, Denial isn't exclusively dependent upon emotion.

-0-0-0-

"Where're yer papers?" Asked the Guard who had finished his investigation of my wagon. His accent was gruff and voice gruff, and I'll be honest, I had almost forgotten what other humans sounded like. It appeared that even when I couldn't be made to feel lonely, I was still a Social Creature at hear- at mind. He sounded a bit congested as well, and peering down his mouth, that was one slimy gullet. His fellow guards were looking healthier but no less tired, having just stepped off the back of my wagon. One or two paid only a cursory glance at my horse before glancing away.

Now then, what had that one guard said? Sounded important.

"What?"

"I said, Whr're yer papers?" I didn't even know what his accent was but it was atrocious…

"…Papers?" I said, leaning down to my feat and acting like I was looking for these 'Papers'. Papers, papers, papers… oh, right, THOSE papers. That you needed to get into the city, and that I didn't remember how to get in game. Was it from that one guy in the fort? That dude by the river? Maybe I shouldn't be interfering with the Canon game, I'm sure there were other ways to get papers…

In the mean time… "…I don't have any?"

The Guard looked at me with a very rude expression and cracked his knuckles

-0-0-0-

First Conversation as a Nobody

Would embarrass me if I had emotions

Quickly devolved from me asking where and how to do this and that and taking notes in my journal to him shouting

And then to threats of seizing my property and of a violent removal

I mean, he's still doing it!

Seriously, what is with him!

"I SAID, GET OFF THE BLOODY BRIDGE YOU LUNATIC!" The guard shouted again, moving to shove my journal away from me as I wrote. I snapped it shut and put it back in my cloak before his grubby mits could get "THEY'RE THREE WAGONS BEHIND YA! i TRUIED BEIN' CIVIL AN' NOW I'M DONE!" I mean, seriously, dude is just mispronouncing words now. " WE'RE GIVEN YA TO THE COUNT O' 10! an' NO, ya CANNOT just steal papers after murdering someone!"

"ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT, I'm moving! I'M SORRY I HAVE NO FILTER!" I call back. Just one last thing... I clench down, hard, on that part of my head that controls time. I push as hard as I can, to the point where it was about to break like it had last time. I then hop off the cart, observing a world so still I can't see anything moving, and explore the entire city, completely ignoring everyone's privacy as I search for a private place large enough to hold my cart. Finding a dozen different locations, I eventually return to the spot I deem best, and nod in approval, before returning to my cart and assuming the same position I had been in before. Now all I had to do was return time to its normal state, get away from the guards, and open up a gate to the spot, and I was in. I release the mounting pressure all at once, and...

" **▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇!"**

...well, I'm blind and deaf now. Sight is comparable to if I had stared into the sun for my entire life and somehow hadn't burn out my retinas, ears ringing like I had stood next to a nuke and my ears somehow hadn't destroyed themselves from the noise...oh, and my body feels like its on fire as well! This can't end well. But everything was still going as - OH who was I Bloody kidding everything had fallen of the rails so far the train landed on the moon. And I believe I'm loosing consciousness? The... Black in my eyes... is growing... Yes, I think... I'm tired...


	14. Chapter 13

**Nobody's Memories  
Chapter 13 - Butcher of Blaviken  
** _I dream._ _Darkness_  
 _There is no light here_ _A platform in the dark_ _My... Heart?_ _it's gone, broken, a shell._ _There are eyes now_ _Hissing at me_ _They come up to me._  
 _The hissing is louder_ _They are bright and yellow_ _My heart is here_ _They bore into me_ _They know I'm still here._

And like that, I wake up. My head hurts, worse than it did the first time my control over time had been broken, and trying to clamp down on it, to adjust it in the slightest... it hurts. A lot. Black spots and ringing in my ears hurts. I wince, and decide it is a very bad idea to do that again. The pain made the urge to touch the other sections of my mind so, so much worse. I was thankfully not literally painfully aware of them, but I had more important things to consider. What had that dream been? Also, where was I? I had fallen unconscious, and couldn't alter time in the slightest, at least willingly, meaning I was in a potentially very, very bad spot. Let's see...

First off, I am shirtless. My robes are neatly folded and hung from the border of the bed, by my feet, meaning I'm in a bed. And... ya, I think I don't want to know what my situation is underneath this blanket. Also, there's a blanket! A very astute observation considering I had realized I was in a bed. Not the nicest blanket, pretty dang scratchy, but I can live with that. I think I'm in some sort of healers hut, or hospital, or whatever the medieval-aged Witcher-verse equivalent was; there were other beds of a similar nature, one to my left and one to my right; a bookshelf, a table between each bed, a nice looking window that sunlight was filtering through...

So, the situation looked fairly good. No need to panic and plan my escape. I had no idea where my stuff was, but judging by the view from the window, I was in a city - probably Oxenfurt. I had been right outside of it whenever whatever had gone wrong had, well, gone wrong after all. There were no people around, at least none that hadn't been trained as some sort of ninja that were completely evading my vision. Considering the setting, I could scratch that off the list of possibilities.

So, I was alone. Just myself, my thoughts, my attempts at emotion, and the background noises of a busy city. No cats, no overreacting guards, no bandits for me to slaughter.

 _"Mrow?"  
_  
No, never mind, there was apparently a cat in here. It had just hopped up onto the bed. A tortoiseshell, I think? I may be a cat person, but that didn't mean I knew jack about cat bree- aaaaaaand it had just sat on my chest. I think it's smirking at me and i quite clearly wants me to pet it. The door was closed, how had it even gotten in here? Well ,sorry I'm not sorry little buddy, I'm going to have to remove you from the premises of my body.

Except I can't. Because most of my strength came from Time bullshit, and I can't currently feel my arms. Or move them. Muscle Fatigue? Did I even HAVE muscles?

"Well sorry, but it looks like I both can't get you off me and can't pet you buddy." I murmur to the cat. Now it's looking at my rudely, how great. Well, I suppose I'll have to lean back and rest my full weight on the pillow for now and... well, isn't this an uncomfortable sensation. Well, maybe not Uncomfortable, just odd. A feather pillow. How oddly Coherent I was today. I was thinking with a constant narrative and everything! I supposed that thinking and acting in a constantly shifting frame of reference as far as time was concerned didn't lend itself to consistency. Nor did my tendency to fake emotions properly. Or inability to read others. Or my general thought process. Or... y'know, I think I wasn't going to find out how deep that rabbit hole went today.

The cat's ears twitch and perk up as it looks towards the door. I follow its gaze, and can hear voices.

"... freakiest of things. One moment the guards said he was fine, if a bit deranged, and the next he collapsed where he sat. Looked as though he had been struck by lightning, and there was noise enough to seem like he was. Some of 'em swear up and down it seemed as though time itself slowed when it happened. Have ya talked to the guards yet?"

"Some of them. Anyone else I should try to find?"

They sounded muffled, and far off, but the voices were clearly growing closer. One male, one female, though I couldn't clearly tell yet. One of them sounded... oddly familiar. I closed my eyes and began to act as though I was still asleep.

"Ye could ask them for the other merchants names. They were behind 'im, after all. Beyond that, I don't know. Whole thing sounds might odd to me, and not like the sort of thing to be handed over to you instead of someone more trustworthy. Was it a Witches curse? Ye should know, considerin' who ya are.."

"The whole of this scenario is odd. And I don't blame you for feeling like I'm under qualified, considering the city's recent... views. Tell me again what he looks like?"

Yes, the male voice was sounding distinctly... familiar. Gruff. And this conversation... it sounded oddly like a video games dialog.

"He was wearin' this silver robe, a big old hood oh its back, and has this pale skin. Smooth as a baby's bottom, and I should know. Had to take off his robes myself, an' he had this odd material as some sort of underwear, same as his robes. I found that book ya were looking through earlier in a pocket fold when I went and folded his cloak."

Oh _thank god_ that was one question answered. I missed something the male had said, though his voice was sounding very, very familiar now. Sounded as though they had stopped right outside my door.

" - and last we checked, he was still out like a light. Has been for a week, and he's spat up all the food and water we've tried given him, but he's not changed at all."

"I see."

Wait a second.

"If I may ask, Sir Witcher -"  
 _  
I knew why I knew that voice._ I cracked one of my open a bit.

" - Why have ye taken such an interest in him? I thought yer kind didn't take part in anythin' without offer of coin."

"Well." Geralt of Rivia said, opening the door.

"I've taken a personal interest. And so have many, many others."

Geralt closed the door behind him as he entered the room, an elderly woman standing beside him. He had two swords strapped to his back, one silver and one steel, and was wearing an odd mixture of blue clothing and chain mail. He possessed a pleasant beard, and form his neck proudly hung an amulet shaped like a snarling wolf head.

Oh yes. There was no denying it now.

The Butcher of Blaviken, The White Wolf, and a dozen other titles had just entered a closed room with me when I was very distinctly not human.

When I was weakened.

And when he had just expressed interest in me.

 _Shit._


	15. Chapter 14

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div style="text-align: center;"strongspan style="text-decoration: underline;"Nobody's Memories/spanbr / Chapter 14 - Living up to others expectations/strong /div  
br / Alright, all I had to think here. I was powerless, couldn't even move a cat at the moment, couldn't stop repeating myself, and luckily had nothing to distract me from maintaining the illusion of being asleep by maintaining a facade of sleep. I decided it was high time to drop the emotions as well, they wouldn't do me any good until I had to act human. Which I hopefully wouldn't, because if the universe acted around Geralt anything at all like it did around him in game, then he would leave after examining me and finding a few odd things, and then come back to try and confront me or something. I was clearly a side quest or something at most. " Contract: Man in Silver." Or something. For now I should just sit here... and / br / "And he hasn't moved?" Geralt finished asking the woman. I didn't hear anything, but I assume she nodded yes, because Geralt continued to speak. " You can leave now. It might be better if you do. Need to confirm something for myself."br / br / What? No, Geralt, no! That's what the Government Agent says before he uses one of the aliens probes on it! Don't lock yourself in this room with me!br / br / "O' course, Sir Witcher." The Woman said. No, curse you woman! I can hear you closing the door, don't you da- and it's closed. Of course. / br / Well, my breathing hasn't changed. Eyes are still closed. At the same time, I still can't feel or use any of my limbs. So I supposed the situation hadn't changed yet. I just had to see what he wanted with me or my cloak, and... ok, his footsteps made it sound like he was next to me. Scratch that, he actually was next to me, I could feel it. Was he looking at my face? Trying to figure out if I was awake or not? I wondered if-br / br / "Silver Robes. Matches the descriptions..."br / br / -oh my god he was talking out loud wasn't he. He was leaning over the bed now, towards my feet and where my clothing / br / "Feels like Silk, but not quite. Odd. Completely clean, can't even tell how it was made... but they say he fell into the mud. It certainly hasn't been cleaned..."br / br / Feeling my Robes, apparently. I mean, really? That wasn't just a thing the game did? He actually talked out loud when investigating things?br / br / "Definitely not a Wraith or a Ghost. Not some kind of Vampire either. I couldn't explain you otherwise." He said, and judging by the purring, petting the cat sitting on my chest. I would call him a traitor if he had ever been on my side. Anyway, I feel like the rule of three is going to apply here; some third reaction. Though whatever Geralt thought of me, it certainly sounded... odd. But not out of line for what I expected him to think of / br / "Oh. Well then."br / br / That…. That didn't sound good. What had he seen? I hadn't felt him move or check / br / "I don't quite think I know what you are anymore."br / br / What did that even mean? C'mon Geralt, give me more than that before you / br / "I know you're awake, by the way."br / br / Or maybe don't and hurry up. I'll just continue as I was / br / The cat chooses this moment to stand up, walk up to me, and slap me with its paw. I unfortunately can't deny the physical movement of my eyes opening in / br / "Ow." I monotone. Let's see, throw my mask of emotions back on… 'Hope I didn't keep you holding your breath?" nope, that's far too sarcastic. And sounds like a pick up line. "Can't help it if I'm lazy, now can I?" Na, that... that was just bad. I needed to be intimidating and maybe a bit more confident and less narcissistic. I mean, I wanted to know what he had seen, but… oh wait, seen. He had viewed me with his Witcher Sense, hadn't he? Now I was legitimately concerned over what he had / br / Now, back to figuring out what to say. He's just standing there, one eyebrow raised, the other on the hilt of his Silver sword – or at least I assume its silver. I didn't know what he thought I was and I certainly didn't remember which sword was which, though it was probably the one he had his hand on the hilt of. Speaking of, how did he remove it from his back? He pulled it up, and that meant it was actually physically impossible for him to take it out of its place on his back, or even to put it there. He couldnt do it easily, at least, and to do it in one smooth motion would end up cutting his neck or something. Even if he could do it because of reasons summarizable as "Magic" or "Magic Witcher Genetics", it didnt seem very practical -br / br / Geralt just coughed awkwardly and the cat just walked next to my face. My time Dilation doesn't work right now, right. I'm not thinking in one-onehundreth the time I normally do but as a normal person, meaning I've been silent for several minutes. Ok, I can recover / br / "Hello Geralt of Rivia." Bad. Very Bad! Don't let him know I know him! " Can I ask how you knew I was awake?" Dammit no why was I saying these things I was saying?br / br / "Only if I ask why you know my name." He said. I swear to god I could see his lips curling into a smile out of amusement, but regardless of that, I didn't want to do anything to make his opinion of me change from what it was now to "Kill it with Fire and Blade.".br / br / "Your reputation precedes you. You've spent a very long time doing a great many good deeds for countless people, regardless of your price." I respond, slowly measuring each word. Nothing suspicious? Actually no shit that was super incriminating and made it sound like I was following / br / The Cat agreed by slowly shaking its head in / br / "Fair enough." Geralt nods. "I knew you were awake the second you cracked one of your eyes open to see who was coming into the room, and left it open a bit too long."br / br / Goddamnit sudden lack of and dependence upon time / br / "…Fair enough." I say instead of that other thing that I definitely shouldn't say. Okay, nothing too bad so far. "So, was you speaking aloud just a show? Or a force of habit?" I instead / br / "Was you pretending to sleep when we came into the room just a show, or was it a force of habit?" He retorts. I forgot how badly and quickly the man could burn you... and it was both actually, for me at least, which applying that logic to him...br / br / ...No, it made sense. I mean, he probably didn't actually speak aloud to himself, and thought my sleeping was purely an act, but... / br / "There were also questions in there. Addressed to you." Geralt / br / "...I'll answer them, if you answer some of mine."br / br / "Of course."br / br / Alright, I could work with / br / " Who, and What, are you, for starters? Why did you come to Oxenfurt?" He / br / I could no longer work with / br / ...Honesty was the best policy?br / br / "To answer your second question first. I came here to finally leave the cave I live in and interact with people and sell crap, and maybe to find a few specific individuals."br / br / ...Too honest? Geralts brows had crossed. He looked quite concerned, but he was nodding now. "...I can accept that. My first question?"br / br / I fidget a bit, unsure of how to answer this. It's... / br / "I'm just another Nobody." I finally say. Yes, I can feel my mysteriousness and crypticism / br / "I'm inclined to disagree."br / br / "Oh really?"br / br / "You certainly seem like a Somebody to me." Geralt says. "And I'm very curious in what you are."br / br / "...There is no real answer beyond what I gave you. Just another Nobody who will live, die, and be forgotten. You can call me Solstice, if you wish." Because / br / "Well then, Solstice. Ask your question." Geralt / br / "Only one?"br / br / "I'm not accepting 'Nobody' as an answer. That your question?"br / br / "...Fair enough, and no, it isn't. Why are you so interested in me? I can think of several reasons, but..." I try to sound hesitant, human. I think I succeed. His reaction seems to indicate I / br / "I have been following your trail for quite some time. You pop up at a village, horrify them and make offers, and then leave. Several villages have been completely destroyed after you visit them. They call you a wraith, a demon, a hundred other things. I wouldn't be interested in you if it weren't for one thing." Geralt begins, pointing towards my clothes, which I really needed to work on referring to in a consistent manner. "They're made of something that I don't recognize, no matter how much it resembles an expensive import from some far off land, and when they move they glimmer like quicksilver and liquid. Frankly put, you match everything I'm looking for in a person - or, as you want to be known, a Nobody - who has set half of two kingdoms into a panic, in the War time. And you're very distinctly not human, because I found the carnage you left in your wake. Whatever you are, you are very dangerous, and apparently can't stop attracting monsters."br / br / "And?"br / br / "And you're not what I expected. You look like a concussed kid."br / br / "Oh, why thank you. What, did you expect the Wild Hunt?"br / br / "Yes."br / br / "...Oh."br / br / This exchange had grown to be uncomfortable, hadn't it?br / br / He looked at / br / I looked at / br / "So, what does this mean for me?"br / br / He draws his / br / I think "Oh Shit" meaning I say oh shit. I try to move, but fail, instead flopping like a worm because apparently my spine works but nothing else does. And... Geralt isnt attacking? Oh, he just drew his sword, and I missed my chance to over analyze how he draws it. / br / " It means, you can't be left alone, and certainly not in the city. You're a kid, meaning I can't feel justified or even reasonably kill you. Not without good reason."br / br / Oh, Protagonists with strong moral grounds. How I love thee. Mainly for not killing me where I / br / "So, I'm going to make a deal." He continues, apparently unconcerned by my flopping. The Cat is still next to me and very amused, to which I tell it Fuck You. As though it were psychic is slaps me with its paw / br / That or it's just a playful cat, but I have a Witcher to worry about / br / "You can come with me, until I figure out what to do with you, and how to do it safely for everyone involved. Most importantly, I care about getting you to leave the city, before more Monsters come to the gates. I get my answers, you get… Human Contact? A place to sell your wares? Whichever it is you prioritize."br / br / "Or?"br / br / "You die by my hands, for refusing to act in the greater good to save others when you otherwise couldn't." Geralt says, placing his sword against my throat. I stop trying to wiggle away. Well, while I would love to call his bluff - which he almost certainly is, and this seems incredibly out of character for him anyway - I would much rather go on living right now, and ... oh, I can move my Pinkie now! I don't know which Pinkie I can move. / br / "...Well, you drive a hard bargain, but I clearly think we know what deal I'm going to take." I say. Hm, I wonder why I can speak when I can't feel the rest of m- no, worry about that later / br / Sheaving his sword onto his back again, dammit I missed it again how is he so quick, he nods. "A reasonable decision." He holds out his hand. "Care to shake on it?"br / br / I stare at the hand. I don't think he would mock me, but...br / br / Does he not know?br / br / "Geralt?"br / br / "Yes?"br / br / "I can't move my body right now."br / br / "Oh."br / br / A glorious beginning to a relationship based on violence. / br / The Cat slapped me again, and I fell out of the bed, having wiggled too close to the / br / Geralt / br / My dignity is long dead, isn't it?  
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	16. Chapter 15

**Nobody's Memories** **  
Chapter 15 - A Boring yet Exciting Timeskip [Kind Of]**

Geralt apparently wasn't willing to risk the city's safety longer than he needed to after I had agreed to come with him. Unfortunately for him, I still couldn't move my spine or use my powers, and I was unwilling to touch anything in my head until I wasn't struck down with miscellaneous ills and confined to a bed. At the end of the first day, I had finally regained the ability to move my fingers. We talked once more, and decided that we would give me a week to recover, and then ride out. I did not look forward to encountering more horses.

He watched me closely for that week, of course. Except for when he didn't, and went off with some contract to fulfill, and new wounds and scratches on his body that would heal within the day. Irregardless, as my body recovered from the apparent flagrant overuse of my powers, he questioned me. He was curious, of course, about why I had collapsed; the best explanation I could offer was an attempt on my life. He asked much more obvious questions as well, the kind I expected him to have asked during our first conversation - Where had I gotten my 'merchandise', what could I do, could I fight, did I have any enemies, why did monsters follow me - anything he needed to better evaluate me as a threat or as a person. I was mostly honest, even when he brought up my interests and I had to try to explain as best I could my hobbies in context. And, of course, the question of exactly what I was. Whatever it was Geralt could see me as, or see around me, or however his Witcher Sense worked, he was totally convinced that I wasn't entirely human. He had his theories, but wanted me to tell him.

My answer never changed. "Just another nobody." I would say.

I asked my own questions too, of course. Not many, but just enough about him that I could be justified in the use of my meta knowledge on his life and to seem as though I was validating wild stories and rumors, or flagrant exaggerations from whichever history book he had made his way into that definitely existed. I also asked enough to figure out what had happened to my stuff. My wagon, cart, whatever – I didn't even pretend to care about its actual name – had been taken by the city, and aside from a "small" tax fee taken from my stock due to keeping it somewhere out of the way and where it wouldn't be stolen, and also due to my stay here, even if I hadn't actually taken up any resources other than a bed. My horse was being kept in an Inns stable, which was… joy. Yay. At least this one was cooperative, and hopefully wouldn't cause another local mass extinction of horses by refusing to cooperate when the week was up.

Sometime near the end of the week, when I could move around but not so much as stop a cat from beating me in a contest of strength – something which happened far too frequently for my tastes – I asked him what he had done to my journal. He tossed it to me, which then knocked me over and onto my ass because yes, I was that much of a pushover right now. He couldn't read it, something I was glad for but yet oddly confused by. After all, they wrote in English, and I wrote in large, blocky text to avoid the issue I usually provoked when writing of no one being able to read whatever it was I had wrote, including me. When I tentatively preached the subject, Geralt looked at my for a moment before pulling a book from the shelf, showing it to me.

I then realized it was another language. Same alphabet, different language being perceived as English. I hoped there wasn't a limitation there.

This, of course, prompted more questions from Geralt concerning my native tongue, and alphabet. I couldn't give him a reasonable explanation, because as one might expect, I wasn't willing to open the can of worms that the cosmic truths I could dish out about the world would bring **.** We did, however, finally address the issue of the monsters which followed me and apparently would repeatedly raze villages to the ground. To be fair, I was surprised by this fact. I had never revisited the villages or towns I had gone to after leaving behind offerings and the day I would return, and what with the lack of constant monster attacks after the first day, I had assumed it wouldn't be so large a problem as it had apparently become. I had even slowed time down and gone hunting for anything that might be stalking me at a distance several times, only finding your usually monster population doing fuck all besides providing free body horror shows.

Speaking of, Horror. An emotion I was glad I couldn't feel on this world, and should probably be concerned by how I can barrel muster any fake empathy for those who evoke it.

On the final day, I could finally move every limb without issue, and pick up t he cat by the scruff of its neck rather than have it shove me off the bed despite my feeble protests yet again. I swear it stood on its hind legs and crossed its arms for a moment after I dropped it though… ah well. I wasn't at the peak of my strength, but it was enough. My Time Dilation hadn't returned either, though I did swear that on occasion things seemed to slow down around me. I still hadn't touched any of the other building or stable pools of energy. I could also still make Gateways to the Corridors of Darkness, so I had an escape if need be. I didn't plan on it.

It was right after I had gotten dressed, finally pulling on my cloak once more, that Geralt walked into the room, boots bloodied and sporting fresh wounds. I decided to cover up the fact I had basically just been acting like a moron because the robes felt like a part of me by asking him exactly how many contracts and job offers he had been getting to be going out almost every day and coming back twelve hours later.

He said none, and that he had been dealing with larger monsters that were apparently drawn to me and brave or uncaring enough to come closer to the city's gates.

I said oh.

He said we were moving out today, and I nodded before thinking back in retrospect to the past week. Geralt just asked me when I was going to stop standing here, and I think I'm just going to keep doing this for the moment.

-0-0-0-

" ...And you rode here on that?" Geralt asked, watching me attempt to get my horse too cooperate. It was refusing, apparently feeling a bit vengeful over the whole many beatings thing, which I didn't feel like repeating in Geralts presence. He was currently gently stroking Roach, his truly intimidating Horse's snout. Roach was looking at me rudely. I was convinced this would ultimately only end well.

"...Yep." I say, finally succeeding in getting the saddle on the horse. I suspected Geralt would step in if I took too long.

"...Does she have a name? He asked, having just fed Roach an apple.

"He's a She?" I look at him, 'surprised'. I didn't know, so that makes it easier. I do wonder if my view on life is negatively affecting my progress to becoming a person, what with how I've recently been viewing emotion. "Nah, no name, I stopped after horse 50 or so, and by then they were getting pretty forgettable anyway."

Geralt stares. He had apparently forgotten to ask about my past horses.

"Not long till I'm ready to go." I say. "Shouldn't take that much longer."

-0-0-0-

It then took 7 hours.

-0-0-0-

Three days later, we rode over the top of the hill, I resisting my horses efforts to kick me off of it and Geralt riding a bit further ahead before stopping. It was a pleasant, very tense three days in which I had nearly figured out his exact plan, and I had decided to blame the Crones for all my monster issues. Because Fuck the crones, and we were quickly growing close to them anyway. But I digress.

"You know the drill." Geralt murmured. I looked up from where I was fiddling with my saddle to see a village in the distance, obscured by woods and mist. I nod and reluctantly pull my hood off. It felt right when it was up and unnatural when it was off, but we had - in a startling burst of common sense - went and said no, it was not smart to ride into civilized places with my magical and unsettling face obscuring hood up.

"You ride ahead and see if it is safe for me to follow, or if we even need to visit, yes." I say. He nods, and like that, rides off towards the village on Roach.

Now... how to settle my bor-

This is when my horse bucked me off. Yes, my dignity was very dead, my time dilation was expressing itself in the bare minimum, but I was still forevermore going to be bored.


	17. Chapter 16

**Nobody's Memories** **  
Chapter 16 - Being Stalked**

I'll be honest, I didn't have it in me to move after the horse kicked me off of it and just stood there, lost in some sort of smug horse-based self satisfaction. One might even say I lacked the heart to. Regardless, I was just fine laying there on the dirt road either way, tampering with my mind, figuring how far I could tighten that feeling in the back of my mind before everything hurt again, or I risked breaking it.

The answer was not very far. Time barely slowed before I needed to stop slowing things down, and I could only hold it for 10 minutes – 10 minutes to myself that was. But again, it was much better than being powerless. I wasn't anywhere near my full strength, being only roughly human and far less impressive than Geralt, and while I was still stupidly durable – I had forced Geralt to test exactly how much force it took to hurt me without any time dilation to make things hurt less, and the answer was "A lot of force falling from a great height, a very heavy rock, and a crapton of magic".

That had been an interesting morning.

I also didn't remove myself from the ground because pondering didn't require me to exert any physical effort and I was a procrastinator.

For the past 10 days, I had been trying to figure out why my Time Dilation had been broken so spectacularly. I had tested it before, after all, and broken it by simply overexerting it. The effects then had just been disturbingly similar to if I was a boss who had been stunned, so that the player would stand a fair chance against him. The Symptoms had been the same, too - muscle fatigue, a loss of feeling in my limbs, disorientation, ringing in my ears, black spots... the fact I knew my breaking point was why I had known to push that far in the first place. Had it been how I disengaged it? The time I spent pushing myself that far? Because several hours spent slowing down time to the point where I couldn't tell if it had stopped or not while constantly moving had probably put a hellish amount of strain on my body.

But regardless, I was just retreading old ground now aaaaaaand bored. I couldn't shuffle through my cart, I had put it back into the loot cave... no cats to abuse me... well then. I finally sit up, ignoring the horse still silently gloating next to me, and instead look towards the village. It looks oddly... Victorian, especially considering what these places were normally like. Might be a town, now that I think about it. Whichever one was bigger, that's what this place was - wooden shacks, log cabins, even a few brick buildings, a wooden wall with a gate thatched roofs of course, but also tiled roofs. Vines crawled up and down the walls and the roofs of almost all the buildings, and all of this was built partially hidden by the woods, which grew thicker and thicker the further back they went. It was also, unfortunately, quite foggy. It provided a creepy, chilling atmosphere, the kind one would expect from any horror movie building suspense. Ordinarily, such connections and observations might be ignored, especially since I could no longer be bothered by such things.

But this was the kind of world where that atmosphere meant "Super-Murder-Monster is HERE", and was a direct result of it trying to eat your face off. So... y'know. Sure, it could just be a foggy day - it was, the entire field was fogged up for miles, and there was a river close by - but was I willing to take that chance? Nope.

It just meant I had to be incredibly vigilante, therefore staving off my boredom. For example, I can see Geralt a few minutes ride ahead of me now, almost at the village's entrance. He was mostly a big, black blob, but...

...he was moving awfully slow compared to Roach's normal canter. And the mist... it was oddly runny, wispy, advancing much more slowly than it had been earlier. My horse... no, I just couldn't tell, she was standing there with the dumbest, goofiest face imaginable on a horse. Regardless, it appeared my passive Time Dilation was working again. The question here was why; what danger had it judged me to be in? Lets see here...

... nothing hiding in the village to ambush Geralt, at least not blatantly; nothing behind or above and about to pounce; no vibrations beneath my feet... The woods? Right to left, let's see here...

...Aaaaand that's a big blurry vaguely human shape watching me from the woods. It looks at me, as though it somehow noticed it had caught by attention, and its gone in a moment, so fast I can't even see it move, or even where it went. Whatever it was, it was very, very fast... and very dangerous. I take note that the fog is moving normally again and looks towards Geralt, who has ridden into town by now, hopping off of roach and guiding him towards what is probably an Inn. I look back at where whatever had been watching us had been, and measure waiting for Geralt to return against following whatever it had been now.

I'm at the edge of the woods where it was a minute later.

This was so, so very stupid and I knew it. But I wouldn't engage whatever this thing was, not yet. I just wanted to pick up its trail before it went cold. I could at least point Geralt in the right direction with his Witcher Sense later, because god knew that it was infinitely more effective at tracking people than I was. Magic Gene Therapy bullshit, it was.

Lets start with obvious things. First off, footprints, or at least some sign of bushes and other plants being crushed under foot or shoved aside. Whatever I had seen, it was large, and had to leave behind some sign it had been here. Second off, torn branches that indicate where whatever it might've been broke limbs off trees by sheer virtue of size; third off, realize that I don't know what I'm doing and that neither of those things were here. No imprints of any degree in the fresh dirt, no brambles crushed or depressed, no signs in the trees that whatever it had been was ever here.

Clearly a good sign. A large, intelligent, humanoid creature that moved fast enough I couldn't follow it with my currently meager time dilation, so stealthy I couldn't find any sign that it had been standing here, and dangerous enough that it set off my passive time dilation simply by watching me.

A leaf chose this moment to very delicately, and much more slowly than it should have, fall into my path of vision. I did not know why, nor did I care why it had fallen. A very gentle breach, lighter than it should have been and lasting longer as well, kicked up. It felt as though something was breathing down my neck. There are Crows, sitting in the trees, suddenly cawing, the noise prolonged and drawn out.

And the mist was once more wispy, advancing at a rate just slow enough to let me know something was wrong once more.

I looked, and found nothing.

I ran.


	18. Chapter 17

**Nobody's Memories**  
 **Chapter 17 - Watchers in the Mist**

There were things, moving in the mist. Dark, blurry shapes, visible out of the corner of my eyes, moving barely fast enough for me to notice, but just fast enough. Fading in and out of my vision, as far ahead as I could see. Or perhaps they were just shapes in the fog, a mind trying to find anything it could. Ill defined, I had no idea how many there might be, how far they truly were.

The branches in the trees would rustle. Leaves might fall. A twig may break. A Bush may rustle. And the feeling of being watched may fall upon me. But I saw nothing, and could never dismiss the noises as simple flora and fauna. After all, there were Crows in the trees, silently watching and taking flight to places unknown.

Yet so far, nothing had slowed. Not my pace, not time, and certainly not whatever might be following me. I was not disturbed, not perturbed, not placed off guard by anything that tried to mess with my mind; I would have my warning, and I would have a weapon to fight with. But despite that, my breath was heavy, my body not yet recovered from when I had been struck down; the Fog seeping into my lungs, feeling much heavier than it should, seeming to weigh me down as I moved.

I was not yet jumping at shadows, expecting them to be whatever played with me, finally revealing itself; and it might be a long while yet. I could exhibit paranoid behavior, but not be driven to true paranoia; but I expected myself to have some limit. And I was truly being played with here.

I had no idea exactly how long I had been running. My internal clock was reliable, but only good if I attempted to pay attention to it; if the timer I set ticking in myself wasn't shoved aside, thrown to the floor and off the table of my mind, Because when I was being watched by something hiding behind every shadow, and expecting it to come any moment, it could not be trusted. But even still, I had been fleeing for a half hour now, and came no closer to the village. Its gate rose in the distance, roofs poking out from beyond that, hidden by the pearly white fog and obscured by distance, sitting exactly as far away as it had before I tried to abscond from the mist.

Changing my course to head out of the woods and to my horse didn't change a thing, either; I could walk and run for as long as I wanted, but the hills would grow no closer, the mist no deeper. Any way I walked, no matter what I tried – no matter how many trees marked, how loud I called for help, to be noticed by Geralt – nothing changed, and yet everything seemed to change.

My mind was being played with.

And I did not like that one bit. It meant I couldn't trust my senses, couldn't trust where I put my feet in front of me, and couldn't know if the next noise I heard from out in the mist was real or not. I could have run a mile by now and I wouldn't have noticed the difference. It meant that, when I could no longer run, NO longer keep moving as I had, my body tired... I stopped. And looked behind me. There was nothing, just more briefly seen shadows and shapes at the tiniest edge of my vision, so indistinct and non descriptive that I almost didn't believe they were there before they were gone.. I should've expected it , really. Like whatever was going on here would simply allow me to confront it directly. I couldn't be that lucky, to actually get into a fight after so long, even if I had to do so weaponless and almost powerless. And so I set my internal clock ticking, a steady beat in the back of my mind, ever present as events proceed around me.

So instead, I sat. The Crows began to caw again, calling for more of them to come and sit in the branches. I waited, the fog moving normally, and the breeze that felt as though something were breathing down my neck picking up again, gently blowing the leaves. A few of the crows fly off their spots on the branches, to land around me. Their heads are turns and hung so that they may stare at me, their eyes red and beady, some well kept and some mangier than a mutt left to die. They make odd noises with their beaks, a rasping instead of a crowing that sounds like an old woman trying to recall how to speak, because she forgot how to long ago. Their numbers grow as more and more leave the trees, and as they do the cawing grows quieter and the rasping louder, less like an old woman and more like some ancient thing trying to speak because it has long forgotten how. Eventually those on the ground outnumber those in the trees, their rasping seeming less and less distinctive, their eyes odd red tint all staring at me. The shapes at the edge of my vision grow closer, the shapes that I now realize the creatures must not realize I can see darting across my field of vision growing faster and more frequent; and yet still nothing comes to try and claim my head from my shoulders, my flesh from my bone, my heart from where it should be but is not.

A few of the Crows land on me, now; on my shoulders or my legs. I am almost willing to give up, to finally open a Gateway to the Corridors of Darkness to seek escape, no longer concern myself with what might come next. I can feel the Crows ancient voice drone on, the silent thrumming of my mind move slowly onward, and the shapes move but do nothing; yet they grow closer, grow louder, grow more coherent...

And so I am just almost willing.

The noises in the mist stopped some time ago, or so I note. Before I set my clock to beat, but after I had stopped moving. The little detail seemed relevant, considering everything move now, yet save for the intentionally made noises the forest was deathly still. Once more the wind began, warm and soft on my neck,much warmer than before; as though some creature was bearing down on me, ready to finally pounce. I felt as though the voice of the crows, older than I could ever hope to be and born in some place where the eldest living things had long since been preserved in stone, and the primordial spirit of nature itself lived on, finally had a message to give me. A question.

The voices seemed to slow, their words chosen slowly and carefully. The wind seems no less warm, simply less fierce in its intensity. And the shapes growing ever closer had grown ever harder to find, almost upon me.

 _Tick_

 _Why are you here?_ The voice whispered into the deepest recess of my mind. _Why have you come?_

 _Tock._

I had no answer to give.

 _Tick._

 _Help me_ It murmurs into the space where my heart once was. _An interloper is upon you._

 _Tock._

I did not understand. The voices did.

 _Tick_

 _We are tired, child._ The voice utters, and my body trembles _We cannot deal with the Thing in our woods._

 _Tock_

I listened, and so too did I listen to the noise in my head. And so I understood, but perhaps not what was intended to be learned. I had finally understood the crows whispering for the past 24 seconds.

6 had passed

 _Tick._

There were no more shapes darting around in front of me, or hiding just at the edge of my vision. The fog was moving much slower than it had moments earlier, when I had thought the rasping had slowed.

 _Ti-  
_  
Claws, too many of them for me to count, tore at me from the fog; pale and greasy, unhealthy and lean; they swiped with long, dirty, nails. Fists swung down at my head as though they intended to hammer me, and the ravens sat and stared. I fell, a Gateway finally opened underneath my feet; and so all of the attacks missed as I sunk into the edges of the Realm of Darkness, Ravens accompanying me as fog slowly seeped through into a realm where light was never meant to touch; I could see naught but blurry shapes already vanishing through the still opened gate. The noise of the chant-like rasp still echoed around me, but were muffled; as though I was listening to it while submerged.

The fog recoiled, as though it were alive; taking the shape of grasping hands and open palms, of tendrils and screaming faces, retreating back to where it came. The Ravens followed, slowly cawing, no longer rasping; some of the ravens that had fallen through, or been sitting on me, also dissolved into a fine mist which shriveled and burst, dispersing into a very thin pea-like sheen. The Gateway closed itself, leaving me submerged in the darkness, surrounded by a thin yet all encompassing fog, free to finally see what shape that the Corridors had shaped themselves into.

An endless, twisted, leafless forest stretched before me, both above and below; the ground both where it should be and sitting where the sky should exist. The branches are twisted and gnarled, reaching as far and wide as they can, intertwining with the branches of trees that hung opposite of them; and etched onto every free surface were symbols and runes, written languages dead, alive, and yet to be made. Every trees roots were uprooted, standing free and naked to air and still written; and from whichever floor they sprung there grew not one single blade of grass.

As I sunk further, fast now that I was no longer in any sort of danger from attackers still unknown, the roots below sprung up, revealing a patch of very, very dark space; a void as empty as I could ever know. The roots rose like they had minds of their own, seizing me; I did not struggle, and so they quickly lower themselves back into place, putting me into the hole that they once more covered.

- _ck._

And so I emerged from a Gateway back into the world in the same second that I entered it, spat out by a glowing black vortex at the same speed I had fallen into it.

I took a moment to gain my bearings, and saw that I was now standing before the front gates of the village, its gate as open and ever and the fog thankfully much lower. A glance towards the hills revealed Geralt had not yet returned, and that my horse was still just standing there. Judging by the lack of screaming and panicked voices, none of the townsfolk had noticed me; though this seemed like a sleepy place.

I hoped it wasn't a dead place as I set off to find Geralt.

-0-0-0-

I had gained two Catty followers. Both of them were Tabbies, and currently sitting on the table me and Geralt were sitting at, located just outside an Inn Geralt had lodged rooms in. Confirmation of many different things; that he thought it was safe for us to stay in town, that he believed something was wrong enough for him to be here, or that my presence didn't matter. I considered myself lucky to have found him so quickly, though I had yet to brief him on my encounter. We sat in the shade one of many large trees in this place, of which this town possessed many; enough that it was covered in a perpetual shade, both day and night. Luckily, the fog here was almost nonexistent; and where it was, it barely rose to ones foot. I sipped a cup of tea, though calling it such was generous, and listened to Geralt speak.

"This town... Solstice, does it feel wrong to you? Off, in the slightest of ways?" Geralt asked. Ah, so he was testing me. Seeing what I could gleam of the situation. I took a moment to sit the cup of tea down, and to watch the townsfolk go about their business. People talking and gossiping, a man driving a wagon towards his store, children playing in the streets. The shade that covered the whole town, the fog silently seeping into the roads, a Crow watching us and perched upon a low hanging branch.

"...Definitely." I respond, turning back to face him. He nods.

"Tell me, what can you tell about the people? How they act?" Geralt murmurs, quiet so as to not be overheard. Yes, what can I tell him? The people seemed quite normal to me. I can't see or sense any degree of fear or weariness, of excitement over some new piece of gossip involving some persons death, can't spot them doing or feeling much of anything, to be honest. In fact, everybody within my pitiful range of heart-sensing abilities felt... dull. Muted. Their actions seemed pointless, as though they were going through the motions; and I had a distinct feeling that if I were to look one of them in the eyes, they would be glassy and glazed.

"They're acting like they were just that... Actors on some stage. Going through their day step by step, not even paying us any attention, because we aren't part of that play. We aren't even a part of the audience, sitting in the seats." I murmur back just as quietly, keeping an eye on the Crow. It hadn't blinked once, nor made a noise, since I had watched it land on its branch.

"I think I know what we're dealing with." Geralt whispers. He moves to stand, but I motion for him to sit back down. "Geralt. I haven't had a chance to tell you yet, but I was attacked earlier. It's why I followed you in." I tell him. I speak up, but not loud enough to be overhead. No reaction from the crow. A look of concern comes over Geralts face at this news, and he sits himself back down.

"Tell me everything." He says. And so I do, in a low, hushed tone, occasionally answering his questions. Of the fog that seemed to be alive, of the whispers from the Crows, of the claws, of the things just outside my vision, and of how no matter how far I ran or how fast I moved, the town never drew any nearer. He frowns as I speak, and it only deepens as I answer his questions. Eventually, as quietly and subtly as I could, I gestured towards the Crow that has been watching us. His eyes follow, and he nods in understanding.

A person walks by, and we grow quiet. I pick up one of the cats and begin to stroke it, and yet all of us watch the woman until she turns a corner.

"...What are we dealing with, Geralt?" I ask.

"It sounds like you had an encounter with a Foglet." Geralt says, taping a finger as he thinks. It is almost certainly a trick of my eyes, but I swear the fog moves in response to the name. And it is one I recognize; I had encountered them when playing the game. I had only encountered them once; however...

"Are Foglets capable of that much? I thought they weren't nearly so deadly, just Necrophages who could become fog, and generate it. Not much more, not much else." I say. It certainly fits, but...

"Some are." Geralt says. "The oldest, the wisest, the cleverest... they can make illusions, and not just tricks of the mind. Solid, tangible things. Things that can certainly not as much as you say you dealt with, not like you encountered..." He trails off.

"What are we dealing with, then?" I want to beg, but don't. He'll tell me with time, and nothing was adding up.

"A Leshen." Geralt utters. The Crow caws for the first time, startling Geralt, and we both stare at it. I take a moment to examine what I know of Leshens. Tall, Shaman-esque figures... skulls masks... wolves... and...

Ah.

"I don't quite understand." I inquire, stealing Geralt's attention away from the crow. "I understand maybe believing so due to the Crows. And their voice. But is it enough to discount that a particularly old Foglet is involved?"

Geralt takes one look at me, his expression contemplative. He glances at the crow one, at the streets, and then back to me one last time. "Did you ever go to the center of town?" He asks. I shake my head no. "It's better to show you." He mutters, standing up. I put the cat down, and follow him as he leads me through town. Behind us we hear the Caw of a crow and the rustling of branches, and don't need to look behind us to know that the bird is gone.

I take the time as I follow Geralt towards the towns center to examine the people. To note that they're moving like puppets, limp and emotionless or stiff and mechanical; confirmed that when I gazed into a mans eyes, I found they were glazed over. That people would, on occasion, do odd things and just keep repeating actions regardless of if they served a purpose or if their task was done. Such as the woman carrying empty water pails as she walked back and forth.

I hear rustling in the trees ahead, and Geralt has slowed; I turn my attention upward, towards the trees, and watch three crows flutter down to perch themselves on a piece of wood, laying in a particularly shadowy spot of town and surrounded by massive trees.

"This is why I believe it's a Leshen." Geralt says. And then I realize what the three crows have landed on, occasionally cawing at us and staring with an unwavering gaze.

A bloody shrine, taking the form of a scarecrow like body wearing a deer's skull strapped to a wooden cross, covered in guts and vines, lies at the towns center; and at its feet are skulls and flowers, belonging to every species local to the area, and some that were not. The smell of blood and rot hit me, and I realized the blood was recent; dripping down off the shrine. I follow its gaze and realize where the smell of Rot is coming from as I see the freshly kill mans carcass.

"Oh." I say.


	19. Chapter 18

**Nobody's Memories**  
 **Chapter 18 - "WHY AM I THE BAIT?!"**

The room is quiet. There is no fog seeping through the cracks, no Ravens staring through the window; and no listeners to spy upon us and listen in upon me and Geralt. Partly because both I and Geralt have keen ears, mine simply sharpened and his superhuman; but also because the Inn was empty, and its rooms dusty. Even ours was, and its beds were made and had gone without use in for a period of time long yet unknown.

There was also the fact that the Innkeeper, a dusty-haired man with a well-trimmed beard, wasn't in any better a state of mind than the rest of the town. He simply stood by his bar, nodding every now and then, cleaning the same exact spotless glass with a worn down rag. He wasn't moving anytime soon.

The trip to the room had been equally as uneventful as our current stay in this room after I had been shown the shrine; it had not disturbed me, which was perhaps the worst part of the entire experience. It hadn't occurred to me until now, but all I had taken it as was a sign that Yes, a Leshen or something similar was involved. As par for the course in this world, an inevitable part of existing here and not moving on to the next world yet. Which, yes, it was inevitable that I would encounter something as fucked up as that; because in retrospect, I already had. I essentially was one of those very fucked up things, considering how gruesomely and emotionlessly I had effortlessly butchered hundreds of bandits by this point. It was the lack of feeling in my heart, that coldness that I had chosen to acknowledge once more, that was … well, not disturbing. It would imply I had felt something. Just… distinctly… something, that made my emptiness yearn.

But here I was, complaining to myself when I couldn't be annoyed, splayed out across a bed and thinking about non-relevant things instead of the town, its inhabitants, and how their reactions might be useful and might imply about the Leshen. I didn't suppose I had anything better to do, though, considering Geralt was sitting cross-legged on his bed and meditating, trying to come up with some sort of combat plan.

He had been taking so long I was almost tempted to try and speed up time rather than slow it, if it weren't for how most of my experiments with Time Dilation had ended recently. Hint, it involved personal pain and crippling my combat capabilities. Ah, how I missed you acknowledgement that I was a nobody and Denial of the fact via a mask of emotions I was slowly getting better at upholding. I could even do sentimental now! And excitement! Back on the Mask that was only halfway off goes.

Is Geralt still siting there? He is? Well, time to break the silence.

"Geralt, I posses a few concerns." And thus is the silence of 3 hours broken.

"Yes?" Geralt cracks an eye open to look at me.

"Well, beyond the fact that you're concerned over whatever we're dealing with here, and that it clearly posses abnormal powers or desires regardless of whatever it may be, I must express concern over my weapon. Namely, the fact that I don't have a weapon on my person right now, and that it isn't silver." I tell him. It wasnt exactly my fault that no merchant or bandits I ran across had a Silver Sword on them. He opens both eyes, and stares at me. He is clearly contemplating something, and I feel like he realized something about me, but I don't know what. That, however, is in between his contemplation. Eventually, he comes to a decision, reaching towards a bag at the foot of the bed and shuffling through it. Oh, really? What was he going to give me, a dagg-

...He just pulled a sword out of a bag that literally couldn't physically hold it. I... WHAT? How did h- That's outright not a thing in setting! I mean, sure, I could fit way too many swords in my inventory before being overburdened -

My train of though it interrupted by said impossible being thrown into my face while my brain failed to compute. What a nice sheave I note.

"That should do. Not the best, but solid and reliable." He said. I nodded to him, mentally putting the bag aside, and pull out the blade. It gleams from the meager light shining into the room, creating a reflection that covers most of the ceiling; I turn it to inspect its shape, and find it to be almost identical to Geralts Silver sword. I turn to him, and find him cleaning a much larger, nastier blade than the one I had seen him wearing earlier, which appeared identical to the one I now held. The much nastier blade he was cleaning was almost certainly Silver.

Well then. Ignoring that.

I hold my new blade gently, and bend it; letting go, it flexes back and forth. That's... good, though I have no real idea how good. Final test...

 _Thrak!_

My sword is now lodged into the bed frame. Yay. I mean, it didn't break, so I know I can use it without it breaking now! So that's good enough. Takes a bit of effort to remove it, but whatever. It wasn't like the Inn's owner would mind, or even notice, the new very deep slash in his bed's frame.

"So Geralt, what now?" I ask, sheaving the blade and trying to figure out

"We wait. I hope you weren't bored, because we're going to be waiting here a while. I have a plan." I note Geralt has put away his other sword somewhere I can't see and is polishing another. It isn't the one he was wearing earlier either, but instead a much large, nastier sword; a green cleaver adorned with a skull on its hilt that looks like it was made to cut you in two. His Steel Sword, I hope.

"How long?" I ask, walking to look out the window. The Sun isn't visible, but its light is, tinging the sky Orange and Yellow as it sets.

"Midnight." I stop putting the sword into my cloak and turn to look at him. He looks like he wants to add something.

I am already slamming my head against the door.

-0-0-0-

"Geralt." I say as we walk into the forest. "This doesn't seem like the smartest of plans, especially considering you haven't informed me of the plan, and that we have followers." I say, gesturing to the Crows in the trees around us. In fact, it seemed less than intelligent, all things considered. He had asked me to show him where I had seen the large, human figure watching us, and so I had agreed; the moon bright and full above us in a dark and cloudy night's sky and shining through the trees, we waded through the mist as it grew thicker and higher than it had earlier.

"I know." Geralt said, examining the ground. "Footprints... a day old, very light. Large and clawed..." He trails off under his breath, sniffing the air a bit. The Fog grows a bit thicker, the light illuminating it, making it shine a bright white, as though it were chalk dust under a spotlight. The trees are barely visible after a certain distance, turning into dark outlines and eventually fading from view altogether. A horribly croaking that sounds more like scratching comes from the trees, where I last heard the Ravens land. Apparently smelling something, Geralt sets off at a rapid pace deeper into the woods.

The clouds in the sky, never a good sign, move to cover the Moon; there is a crack, and rain begins to fall. It is quick, unnatural, and yet light.

"Nothing you say will convince me that walking into this is a good idea, Geralt." I follow him, keeping quiet. Though I'm not sure if I truly saw it, I could have sworn I saw something moving in the distance, just beyond what I could normally see. "So just try me." I pull my hood up now, the rain growing heavier, thunder in the distance crackling louder.

"We need to know what we're facing." Geralt says, walking further and deeper into the woods. Past where I had presumably reached earlier. "If it is a Leshen, one old as we may think, then our job here will be very difficult. I don't believe that most of my usual methods are valid here. Finding the center of the woods, its deepest, darkest grove, may go a long way to helping us. And if it is a Foglet, then we simply need to make it come to us instead of have us come to it. We won't find it, and if we do, it will not be in favorable conditions." He tries to explain his reasoning, and I nod, though the number of shapes at the barest edge of my vision have grown in number. Geralt stops for a moment, and I hear him sniff the air once more.

"The trail's gone cold." He says, turning to face me.

"So Geralt, how do we draw... whatever it is, out?" I say, making an opened-armed sweeping gesture with my hands. "This is a big forest. I doubt we can find this things grove,or however a Leshen works, if a Witcher hasn't killed it by now. And though whatever it is may be stalking us, or watching us, I don't think it'll come so openly with two of us clearly armed." I say. I doubt it within my mind, however, because of the things I can see just beyond my sight once more, dashing from tree to tree and drawing nearer much faster than before.

"One of us." Geralt corrects, and I acknowledge that as truth. I had placed my new sword within my Coat's folds, and out of sight. "Even then, Geralt. There are two of us, and you are a Witcher." I glance up, and peak at the moon, very few slivers of light shining through the trees, though their canopy is lighter here, a sort of clearing in the woods. I had to squint, in some poor effort to keep water from getting into my eyes, but even I could tell this wouldn't be the kind of weather that tipped a battlefield to our favor.

"Perhaps we should…" I begin to say as I look back to Geralt, only to realize Geralt isn't there, and that I am now alone. I then realized he had been answering all of my questions at once by telling me "One of us.".

"Real funny, Geralt! Ha ha ha!" I mock-laughed, staring at the shapes. They had grown… much, much closer. Far faster than earlier. I heard rustling in the trees, and looked up to see a Crow flutter down, to land in front of me. It appeared it wasn't being waterlogged, but still puffed up, smelling rancid now that it was soaked. It sat there, staring at me with its head cocked and one eye facing me. More and more fluttered down from the trees and through the canopy, surrounding me. Within moments, they were of the same number as they had been when last I was lost in the woods.

Lightning flashed somewhere in the distance, illuminating the woods and creating shadows and silhouettes.

The Ravens remained silent. All I could hear was their wings fluttering, thunder crackling, and the rain dropping.

"Seriously though, Geralt!" I say, raising my voice. "WHY AM I THE BAIT?!" I yell, knowing why. They knew me. They thought I was vulnerable. And I had escaped them before. I couldn't quite describe what I was as unhappy, but it was what I was.

The shapes drew nearer, and the crows began to rasp. I heard them, and they began to sound like a voice that wasn't truly a voice, sleepy and old and ragged; but it seemed as though it had finally remembered how to speak without a struggle.

 _The Interloper and it's kin_ The voices etch into my mind as one. _Dispose of them._

That was… concerning.

 _We will not be deposed._ My body tells me, a message from it. _They are already upon you._

And with that, the Murder of Crows takes off as one, shrieking. I check the corner of my eye, and see that they are right. Shapes, blurry and undefined, prowl towards me; there are three of them, no longer hiding, no longer just outside of my visions range. They move slowly, crawling towards me on all fours and possessing an arched back, like canines. It appears I, in fact, make excellent bait, and that there was indeed Foglets, or at least simple Necrophages, involved.

I reach towards the folds of my Coat, where I placed the silver sword; prepared to draw it as they draw near. I must wonder why they, whatever they actually are, are acting so straightforward; are they frustrated with my escape from our last encounter? Where was Geralt? And why were they moving so sl-

My thoughts are interrupted when a burst of lightning illuminates the forest, for a brief moment, but a moment longer than it should have. There is a very, very large shadow of a bony, hunched over creature behind me. The realization that my Time Dilation had activated hit me.

"Son of a-"

And like that, I am punched very, _very_ hard and far, tumbling and rolling as dirt is kicked up around me, eventually coming to a stop after crashing into a tree, splinters flying like shrapnel and the tree probably being ruined. I have barely a moment to remove the sword from my Coat before whatever had attacked me was upon me again, appearing in front of me with its fists clenched together as it swung down to attempt to crush me. I clench down in the back of my mind as I jump away from its claws and the ruined tree, now able to view whatever had been attacking me as though it was moving normally and simply very fast, rather than too fast for me to see.

It is indeed a Foglet; a very, very big Foglet, that towered over me. Its flesh was greener than the leaves on the trees, its face was shrunken and shriveled, resembling a goblin hags; and its bones were exposed to the world, as were its tiny guts and organs, pulsing and beating away in whatever type of Exoskeleton it had developed. I adopt a ready stance as it glares at me, sword held ready. I glance behind it, and can see the silhouettes of three other Foglets, as large as I am with bones sticking from their flesh, as they turned towards us. And above one of them was Geralt's outline, falling towards the Foglet below him with his sword ready to pierce one of its skull as he landed upon it.

Good to see I hadn't been abandoned. I could trust Geralt with those three very large and nasty Foglets while I fought this one off for now. I turned my gaze back to it, aaaaaaaand where did it go?

The Moon is no longer covered by the clouds, illuminating the thick fog; the raindrops are falling ever so slowly yet thickly, almost making a sort of curtain. I back away, searching the woods for my foe, but find nothing; I try to speed up my time dilation, but cannot; anything more pains me. It seems that this is the best I can manage right now. At the edge of my vision, to my left and my right, are two shapes; they leap at me, and I jump backwards, allowing the two Foglets to crash into each other, collapsing into... mist? Illusions, then. Geralt had mentioned them.

It appeared this would be a very defensive battle. This thought was confirmed by the Foglet that reared up behind me, claws ready to slash as me.

I slashed at it first, cleaving it in half. Where I cut the body turned to wisp-like tendrils and then dissolved into fog, leaving me open for the actual Foglet now attacking me from what had been my front moments ago, its claws restricting me as it bore into me with its full strength, attempting to pull me apart and slice me in two at the same time; I didn't cry out, too busy attempting to keep the mental hold on my time dilation from snapping. I could feel the claws digging into me, actually hurting me, as were the fists; the sheer brute force was more than enough to hurt me. I gripped my sword tighter, feeling it warp and twist; but with all the strength I had to offer. I jabbed it into the hand of the Foglet holding me, causing it to shriek in pain and toss me away. I crashed through tree after tree, breaking most of them in half and simply uprooting others with the force I had been thrown with.

Standing up from the small pile of trees I had created, bloodied and battered, soaked and splintered, I decide that this is indeed a very, very old Foglet. It was nothing like its in-game counterpart, and I had rarely seen anything that massive in game either. And to make everything so much easier for it, the fog had grown thicker and deeper yet again, and I can no longer see further than five feet in front of me. It showed no signs of stopping, either. This situation just kept getting worse and worse, didn't it?

A claw swipes out at me from the mist; I swing at it, and sparks fly as they meet. So does another claw, and another, and another; faster, and faster, and faster. I try to meet each of them, sparks flying and illuminating that they come from nowhere, but my blade is bent now; I duck the next claw to come and kick at the next, swinging in a wide arc, trying to hit the Foglet, if it could be hit at all. Nothing connects, and instead of the kick aimed at the latest claw simply being deflected off and serving to stall for time; I feel the claw grasp around my leg; The Foglet is there now, a hideous grin on its face as it holds me up like a rag doll before smashing me into the ground. It smashes me repeatedly as I struggle to escape, mud flying past my face as I make a deeper and deeper hole in the ground. I have to struggle to keep my focus from snapping, because if I do, there will be no saving me. I make a desperate swipe at its hand as it holds me, the only part of it close enough to hit; I see blood fly as it drops me into a hole that hadn't been there a moment before.

It walks backwards, fading into the fog, as I stand; one of my legs trembles a bit, and I cry out in pain as I collapse, struggling to sit myself upright using my one good leg. I eventually find the strength to stand up, using the already ruined sword as a crutch and support. Not like it could get any more ruined.

A Crow it sitting on the branch of the tree I was sitting under, and had been slammed into the roots of several times.

 _Are you truly so weak, Child?_ It asks. It sounds like every time my father disapproved of my actions, drilled into my soul. _If you cannot defeat the Interloper yourself, follow me._

And like that, the raven hops off its branch, flying away and out of sight. I look for the Foglet, and seeing nothing, follow the Crow. Though I have lost sight of it, there is nothing to stop me from running in its general direction; and just when I believe it to be gone, my chance at whatever was being offered lost, it let out a cry. I am still headed this way, it wanted to say. Come, child.

Unfortunately, I feel a presence behind me, and am already swinging at the Foglet; as it jabs at my chest with its massive hand; my already crumpled sword folds up breaks in half as the two connect, igniting in sparks once more, and illuminating its face. Its eyes are like cold, bottomless coals, large and unblinking.

I swing at it with my horrendously bent out of shape half of a sword before it can move again, making it grab for my hands; I respond by poking it in its eyes. It hisses at me and stumbles backwards as the Crow lets out another noise, and I begin to run. I ignore the pain in my legs and just _**focus**_ on keeping my time dilation from breaking. That's how the next long, long period of time progresses; the Foglet chasing me, trying to kill me or get some sort of petty vengeance on me, attacking me from as many directions as possible as often as possible as it tried to disorient me, followed by me barely repelling it and sending it back into the fog, ignoring how it felt like my leg had been slowly gnawed off by lions as I my Time Dilation refused to break. I undoubtedly got lost and backtracked numerous times, but the Crow would soon set me back on track.

Regardless, I knew one thing changed. Several, really. The trees were getting older, large, thicker; and not just that, they were growing more densely packed. The air itself felt older, the scent of the woods more primordial, the lightning fiercer and rain harder. Eventually, the fog began to lessen; and eventually, it faded enough that I could see. It did not help, not when my foe could materialize from the fog itself, but I could now see in front of me; and ahead, the trees were thicker than ever before. The Foglet rose out of the mist once more, ready to attack, to try and end this once and for all. It's breath was run ragged, its small lungs beating and beating more and more. I lashed out at its lungs, intending to ruin them, to break them; it swipes at me, and I have finally lost my sword, whatever was left of it after the chase now stuck in the palm of the Foglet.

The Foglet no longer cares, and tries to take my head off. I am launched forward, closer to the raven, impacting against a tree with an ear shattering boom. It creaks, and begins to fall, The Crow flying away and I following it. The Foglet is slower now, its newfound injury hindering it and yet the Foglet is unwilling to stop to remove it.

The trees that were larger than ever before were in front of me, with little to no space between them. The largest of the gaps was barely large enough for me to slide myself into, and so, I did; falling into a hollow where the fog barely rose to my feet. It appeared that i was in a hollow, choked full of weeds and vines and overgrown plants I didn't recognize, protected by the ring of trees. The differences in the woods I had noticed earlier weren't just more noticeable here, but tangible; the air felt as old as time itself, charged with ozone as though Lightning had struck the spot I now stood; the air was quit literately Primordial in appearance, an experience that failed words.

The Crow was standing on the ground in front of me. Staring.

The Foglet was suddenly in front of me, hatred in its eyes as it lashed out at me, ready to finally end everything once and for all.

The second it appeared, it was as thought every plant came to life, lashing out at it like an eldritch horror, pulling it away from me and holding it in place as it roared and cried out in pain. I attempted to fade away, to transform into fog and escape, but solidified the moment it tried. A hand as large as my body grabbed it by the head, plucking it from its prison and crushing it into a fine red mist, before the plants leaped up and began to devour every single drop of blood,bone, and flesh that wasn't being held tight within the hand.. I followed the hand to the arm, to the body, and finally to the head.

I saw a gigantic deer's skull.

It was standing where the Crow had moments before, feeding the rest of the Foglet's remains to the plants in the clearing.

 _Your companion finished his fight long ago, and is searching for you._ The Leshen told me. There wasn't one part or aspect of me that didn't feel it, and the void in my heart felt colder than ever before as I realized how empty I truly was, regardless of how I acted. _You have much to learn, little Nobody. You will go unharmed. Now sleep again as I will shortly, for you will be returned to him. Visit me again one day, if you would; you kind always made for excellent company.  
_  
I listened. I understood. And So, I let go... and _drifted... away..._


	20. Chapter 19

div style="position: absolute; left: -9999px;" data-redactor-wrapper="1"  
div style="text-align: center;" data-redactor="1"strongspan style="text-decoration: underline;"Nobody's Memories/span/strong/div  
div style="text-align: center;" data-redactor="1"strongChapter 19 - On the road once more/strong/div  
div data-redactor="1" /div  
div data-redactor="1"emMy Heart is beating. Frantic eyes surveying the land, ignited with fear, a message from elsewhere and perhaps elsewhen reverberating from antenna to tail blade, and deep into it's very being, to the heart swallowed in darkness and succumbed to the most intense of emotions, a base being of primordial hunger and little else./em/div  
div data-redactor="1" /div  
div data-redactor="1"emAnd right now, it is panicking. It's panic is not a pretty panic, within the valley's walls; The river gnashes and churns, ruined and interrupted by the deep routes now carved into the ground by its body; claw marks adorn the walls as boulders fall and long standing geological formations crumble. The remains of a nice little hamlet built near the base of the river and in a wide clearing are destroyed and utterly wiped from the face of the earth as My Heart clutches its head and tries to climb its way upward, out of this valley, out of this world and to the comforting darkness; it does not care for the hamlet that had flourished, now forever wiped from the face of that world. It cares for its dly rooted anger, as it tries to howl in confusion, but only a silent hissing permeates the air for miles./em/div  
div data-redactor="1" /div  
div data-redactor="1"emIt does not know what this message was, what it's contents were; it only cares that it is being attacked, touched in the deepest of ways, and it will not stop./em/div  
div data-redactor="1" /div  
div data-redactor="1"emAfter a moment, it finally stops writhing and turning, having noticed me. It no longer resembles an eldritch horror of indescribable shape, bur rather a sleeping one. The valley no longer resembles what it once was moments before as it stares at. My Heart stares at my Body. My Heart lash-/em/div  
div data-redactor="1" /div  
div data-redactor="1""-lstice!" Geralts voice calls from above me. It stirs me from my slumber, and I awake. My head hurts, my body feels like I had spent several hours running and being beaten to a pulp, and I had just had some weird dream. Something about Cthulu?/div  
div data-redactor="1" /div  
div data-redactor="1"Except all of those things had actually happened. And… there had been a Leshen? That was secretly a Crow? I groan as I open my eyes, the sunlight hurting my eyes. Not the best of wake up calls./div  
div data-redactor="1" /div  
div data-redactor="1""C'mon Geralt, can't I get my much needed beauty sleep? It's hard to look this average waking up y;know." I complain. I had spent a long few days learning Sarcasm was enough of a easily produce trait I could use it to replace the personality I didn't have. When in doubt, complain and make stupid jokes./div  
div data-redactor="1" /div  
div data-redactor="1""…Solstice, what do you remember?" Geralt asks, and I squint, able to finally make out blurry shapes. I look in the direction I think Geralt is, his size indicating that he's crouched onto his knees to look at me, and think for a moment./div  
div data-redactor="1" /div  
div data-redactor="1""Let's see. You used me as bait, I got beaten up, you killed some Foglets, I got my ass saved by a Leshen, we both decided we needed some sleep…." I say, omitting a few choice details involving what I was. "…Why do I feel wet?" I ask. Looking down I discover that I had apparently been sitting in a puddle of mud for who knows how long, asleep./div  
div data-redactor="1" /div  
div data-redactor="1""Is that it?" Geralt asks. All things considered, yes, yes it was./div  
div data-redactor="1""Yep." I say, finally looking around. Sure, my neck hurt, but what was a little pain when I could figure out where I was? "Care to fill the gaps?"/div  
div data-redactor="1" /div  
div data-redactor="1""Sure, why not." He says. "Let's see. After you were hit hard and far enough that I lost sight of you, I was left to fight off the two Foglets."/div  
div data-redactor="1" /div  
div data-redactor="1""I saw three."/div  
div data-redactor="1" /div  
div data-redactor="1""There were two after I entered the fight. So, after two became one, and one became none, I went looking for you. Must've spent the whole night tracking your scent and following your trail of destruction. In the end, I never found you. Forest kept rearranging itself, trying to dilute your scent, repairing any signs of where you might've gone. Sun was rising by the time I came back to the town." Geralt explains./div  
div data-redactor="1" /div  
div data-redactor="1""So, how did you find me, and then take me back here, to the hills?" I ask, realizing where we are. The landscape truly looked different without Fog covering its every inch, and dark clouds in the sky above./div  
div data-redactor="1" /div  
div data-redactor="1""Getting to that. When I got to the town, everything was back to normal, for what passes as normal around here. No more dead eyes, no watchers in the trees,and the Innkeeper was as right as rain. He remembered me paying for the room and to stable Roach, but not much else. I went around the town, talking to people, and none of them had a very sharp recollection of what had happened for the past few months. When I went to the center of town, there was no shrine. It had vanished into thin air."/div  
div data-redactor="1" /div  
div data-redactor="1""Disturbing. But it makes sense." I said. And considering the Leshen's age and motives? Setting up shop to get rid of the Foglets and then packing up when they were gone did make sense, but implied many things. Such as this analogy not fitting at all./div  
div data-redactor="1" /div  
div data-redactor="1""For a given definition of sense. I eventually retired to the room, and slept. When I came to, I figured you were long gone - either having run from me, or because you were dead. So I packed up, and road out of town on Roach, ready to my prior quest in full. And then, as I saw you horse, I slowed down... and found you sitting where you are now, asleep." Geralt finished/div  
div data-redactor="1" /div  
div data-redactor="1""...Huh." I say./div  
div data-redactor="1" /div  
div data-redactor="1""Yep." He replies, hopping onto Roach. I look and see my horse is still standing there, eating grass and ignoring me./div  
div data-redactor="1" /div  
div data-redactor="1""So either way, business as normal?" I ask, hopping onto the Horse. Oddly enough, despite my body aching, I feel better than I have since I went to Oxenfurt. The Horse even goes along with me for once./div  
div data-redactor="1" /div  
div data-redactor="1""Seems like it." Geralt answers. So the plan was still to ask the Bloody Baron about Ciri and find Yennifer in Skellige to talk about Ciri and my "Issues". Good enough for me. "Not so sure about leaving now that we know about the Leshen, but we're off schedule as is..." He adds./div  
div data-redactor="1" /div  
div data-redactor="1"We're already riding, turning right and with the intent of going around the forest instead of through this time, when I shrug. "We wouldn't find it anyway."/div  
div data-redactor="1" /div  
div data-redactor="1""I know."/div  
div data-redactor="1" /div  
div data-redactor="1"And so, we ride./div  
div data-redactor="1" /div  
div data-redactor="1"-/div  
div data-redactor="1"strongSomething shorter to cool down. We aren't going back to just comedy just yet folks, so buckle down./strong/div  
/div 


End file.
